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SOCIALISM AND WAR 

By Louis B. Boudin 



Author of 
''The Theoretical System of Karl Marx" "Govern- 
ment by Judiciary/' etc. 



New York 
New Keview Publishing Association 
1916 



znsii 



Copyright 1915 

by 

The New Review Publishing Association 



Entered at Stationers' Hall 

London, England, 1916, by 

Louis B. Boudin 



All Rights Reserved by Louis B. Boudin, Including that of 

Translation into Foreign Languages, Including 

the Scandinavian, 




Press 

The Language Printery 
New York 



m 28 1916 
©CI.A431661 



PREFACE. 

The six lectures contained in the volume which 
is herewith offered to the public at large were 
first delivered at Arlington Hall, New York City, 
on the six Thursdays beginning with Thursday, 
November 17, 1914. It was intended from the 
first that they should not only be delivered orally, 
but published in book form so as to give them a 
larger audiene. Owing to some untoward inci- 
dents, however, the work of publication was de- 
layed ; so that their appearance in print will occur 
almost exactly one year after the oral delivery of 
the first lecture. 

It seemed to me at first that this long delay be- 
tween delivery and publication made it necessary 
to undertake some revision, in order to notice some 
developments or incidents which have taken place, 
or have become known, since the lectures were 
prepared about a year ago. But on further con- 
sideration I decided to leave these lectures sub- 
stantially as originally prepared for oral delivery, 



as nothing has transpired during this year to 
change my views on the subjects presented or shed 
any great additional light upon them, with one ex- 
ception which will be noted further below. 

The lectures as printed in this volume are not, 
however, in quite the same form as when delivered 
orally. Nor is the substance exactly identical. 
The exigencies of oral delivery sometimes made it 
necessary to treat the different points touched 
upon in the lecture in a different order from that 
originally intended; and occasionally leave 
some points untouched upon, when the lecture 
became too long for delivery in the lecture room. 
The lectures as here presented are, therefore, not 
in the form in which they were delivered, but 
rather in the form in which they were intended 
to be delivered. The substance remaining the 
same, except for the omissions in the oral delivery 
but included in the present volume. 

Except in one instance where I have deviated 
both from the original intentions as well as from 
the delivered lecture, so as to leave out from the 
book something that I had treated orally. This 
omission relates to the last lecture. As originally 
prepared, and as delivered orally, it contained a 
somewhat extended review of the attitude taken 
by the Socialists in the different warring countries 
to the war. I have decided to leave this review 



from the present volume, partly because I did not 
want to burden it with too much controversial 
matter ; although I have taken great care to make 
my own attitude to the subject clear, and therefore 
furnished the criterion by which I believe the 
action of the socialists in the different countries 
should be judged. Another circumstance which 
weighed with me in making the change is the fact 
that the subsequent developments along this line 
were such that, under the new circumstances, my 
original treatment of the subject seemed to me in- 
adequate. It seemed to me best, therefore, to leave 
this particular branch of my original subject for 
separate, and I hope adequate, treatment later on. 

L. B. BOUDIN 

New York, October 17, 1915. 



CONTENTS 



Page 



111 



Preface - - - , - . - 

I. Clearing the Ground - - - - i 

II. The Economic Causes of the War - - 44 

III. The Ideologic Causes of the War - - 81 

IV. The Immediate Causes of the War and 

the Stakes Involved - - - 121 

V. The War and the Socialists - - 169 

VI. Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories - - 213 



I. 

CLEARING THE GROUND. 

When one decides to put up a building, his first 
task is to clear the ground upon which he intends 
to build. This may not be exactly "constructive" 
work, but it is nevertheless a necessary part of 
any construction. It is the same in any mental 
building operation. You cannot do the work of 
construction properly without first clearing your 
lot of any rubbish that may have accumulated, or 
of the old structures that you may find occupying 
the place where you want to build the new. I 
have therefore decided to devote this introductory 
lecture to a discussion of the many current mis- 
conceptions about the war and its causes. Incident- 
ally, this critical process may accustom my 
audience to examine the questions involved from 
many angles and therefore be in a better position 
to judge more critically my own performance when 
I get to the "constructive" part of my task. Let 
us, therefore, look at the explanations which have 



2 Socialism and War 

so far been advanced. But before doing so we 
must formulate the question that the explanation 
is supposed to answer. 

This question presents itself to us in two forms : 
First : Who or what caused the war ? And, second : 
What is this war all about? These two formu- 
lations while, naturally, closely resembling each 
other, and often covering the same ground, are 
by no means identical. The second formulation 
of the question is deeper, and also broader. It is 
deeper, because it is not satisfied with finding the 
"guilty party", but wants the cause, the reason, 
for his guilt. It is broader, because it is not 
satisfied by finding someone who may be justly 
said to have caused the war, but wants to know 
why he was permitted to do so. Or, to put it in 
another form, the first question is answered by 
finding one "guilty party," whereas the second is 
not until we have discovered two "guilty parties", 
so to say. 

And there is good reason for this broadening 
of the question. We all know that it takes two to 
make a bargain. And it also takes two to make a 
fight. One can no more fight alone than he can 
bargain alone. If one is looking for a fight he 
must find somebody who is willing to take him up 
before there can be a fight. If we want to find the 



Clearing the Ground 3 

real explanation of this war it is not, therefore, 
sufficient to find the "party" that started the fight, 
nor even the thing he was after in starting the 
fight. We must go a step further and find the 
reason why the other party to the fight was will- 
ing to take up the fight rather than give up the 
thing the aggressor was after. As you know, this 
war was started by what is called an "ultimatum", 
— a notice to "give up or fight," — and the party 
receiving the notice deciding to fight rather than 
give up. And the real crux of our problem is to 
find what made the thing demanded and refused 
so important to the nations involved in the great 
conflict as to make it worth their while to engage 
in this most bloody of wars about it. In other 
words, we must find not merely a first cause* but 
an efficient cause — efficient to make both sides 
go to war. 

Bearing this in mind, let us look at the events 
that led up to the war, in chronological sequence, 
in order to see whether or not we can discover 
such an efficient cause floating on the surface of 
the troubled waters. 

On July 23rd, the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment sent an ultimatum to Servia making certain 
demands, and gave as its reasons therefor that 
its demands were dictated, first, by a desire to 



4 Socialism and War 

mete out adequate punishment to those guilty of 
complicity in the murder of Archduke Franz Fer- 
dinand, and second, by a desire to stop a propa- 
ganda which was threatening the integrity of the 
Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

We may assume for the purposes of this first 
step of our investigation that the reasons stated 
by Austria were sufficient to make that country 
go to war in case her demands were not complied 
with. So far so good. But at the very next step 
we meet with difficulties. Why should Servia have 
refused to comply with these demands? What 
purpose could Servia have in protecting regicides? 
Even republics are now-a-days slow to protect 
regicides. And surely the government of His 
Majesty King Peter Karageorgewitch was not 
exerting itself on behalf of any democratic- 
republican principles. Nor is there any reason 
why Servia should want to encourage a propa- 
ganda that would bring about the disruption of 
the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Unless she had 
some particular object in view as a result of that 
disruption. But then we are only at the begin- 
ning of our problem, — that of discovering the 
object that Servia had in either protecting the 
murderers of the Archduke or encouraging the 



Clearing the Ground 5 

propaganda complained of, that would make it 
worth her while risking such a war. 

And the difficulties grow as we go along. For 
it goes without saying that Servia would not 
have dared defy Austria had she had no outside 
backing. So that in accounting for Servians 
refusal to comply with the demands of the 
Austrian ultimatum we must find an object worth 
fighting for not only for Servia but also for her 
backers. That brings us to Russia. 

What did Russia have at stake in this Austro- 
Servian controversy, or what other object may 
she have had, that made her back up Servia? In- 
deed, the Czar of Russia, whose grandfather died 
at the hands of regicides and who has himself 
spent most of his life in fear of regicides, must 
have had some very strong reasons in backing up 
Servia that would make him not only risk a world- 
war but act as the protector of regicides. You will 
recall Wilhelm*s letter to Nicholas in which the 
German Kaiser urged upon his Russian cousin 
their common interest in punishing regicides. To 
my mind this was the most telling appeal that 
could be made to the Russian Czar. And yet, it 
remained without an effect. What was it that 
robbed this appeal of its efficacy? 

The official explanation that Russia went into 



6 Socialism and War 

this world-war in order to protect a "Slavic" 
nation against an alien race, is, of course, a mere 
hollow pretext, — a pretext that would hardly be 
advanced even by Russia except for home con- 
sumption, and, perhaps, for the most gullible and 
ignorant foreigners. We all know that the non- 
Russian Slavs are much worse off in Russia than 
in Austria. The Poles are Slavs. And yet that 
did not deter Russia from instigating the par- 
tition of Poland. Nor from ruthlessly destroying 
all signs of national life among the Poles within 
the Russian Empire. Nor yet from otherwise 
oppressing them in such a manner as to gain their 
everlasting hatred. And even the Balkan nations 
themselves have had occasion to find out what 
Russian protection of its "little brothers" of the 
southern peninsula really meant. With the result, 
among other things, that Bulgaria is playing the 
role of a German dependency from fear of Russian 
aggression. Clearly, therefore, the "protection 
of a Slav nation" could not have been the real 
moving cause which made Russia enter upon this 
world-conflict. What was ifi 

After Russia came Germany. Russia having 
declared her readiness to "protect" Servia against 
Austria, Germany came upon the scene with the 
announcement that if Austria was not permitted 



Clearing the Ground 7 

by Russia to have her way with Servia, she, Ger- 
many, would go to war with Russia, and, if neces- 
sary, with Russia's allies. What interest did Ger- 
many have in this quarrel ? History fails to disclose 
any particular love or affection between the mem- 
bers of the royal house of HohenzoUern and the 
Princes of the Hapsburg family. If history dis- 
closes any predilection at all in that regard, it is 
to fight each other rather than fight for each other. 
Surely the killing of the Hapsburg Prince could 
not cause Germany's hosts to form in battle array. 
Nor was there anything in the "propaganda" 
complained of by Austria to cause Germany to go 
to war. Viewed from a purely German-national 
point of view that propaganda could only be wel- 
come to Germany. The disruption of the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire — assuming that the 
"nefarious propaganda" could really have that 
effect, as was asserted by the Austro-German 
statesmen — would mean the attainment of the 
dream of German patriots for generations past, — 
a real United Germany. The continued existence 
of the Hapsburg Empire is depriving Germany of 
her choicest provinces, of the most ancient seats 
of German culture, of the most German part of 
Germany. WTiy, then, should Germany enter 
upon the most stupendous struggle the world has 



8 Socialism and War 

ever seen in order to preserve the integrity of the 
Hapsburg Monarchy? 

The official answer is that Germany was bound 
to Austria by treaty, and therefore had to come 
to her assistance. But this answer, like the "Slav 
brother" answer of Russia, cannot be taken 
seriously even in Germany. How can it be? Has 
not Germany herself declared, almost in the same 
breath, that treaties were mere "scraps of paper'* 
when serious interests are involved? If the mere 
exigencies of a campaign were, according to Ger- 
many's own declaration, a sufficient reason for 
the breaking of a treaty which involved the com- 
mission of a crime besides, it goes without saying 
that the existence of a treaty could not possibly 
make Germany engage in a war in which, as she 
herself claims, her very existence is at stake. 
Besides, there were, as a matter of fact, no such 
treaty obligations. The terms of the Triple 
Alliance bound its members to come to each 
other's rescue only in case of a defensive war. 
Austria was clearly the aggressor. This was the 
position officially taken by Italy, the third member 
of the Triple Alliance. It is interesting to note 
that Italy's course has found many defenders even 
in Germany, and in quarters where the defensive 
character of the war waged by the Teutonic Allies 



Clearing the Ground 9 

is vehemently insisted upon. These German 
defenders of Italy assert that Italy's vital 
interests dictated a policy of neutrality, and that 
this absolved her from her treaty obligations 
towards Germany and Austria. If these argu- 
ments are good enough to excuse a faithless ally 
they would most assuredly have been found more 
than sufficient to justify Germany's course had 
she desired to stay out of the fight — aside from the 
fact that if Germany had desired to stay out there 
would have been no fight. It is therefore clear 
that treaty obligations could not have caused Ger- 
many to enter into this war. She evidently must 
have some object — some vital interest — of her 
own, to assert or defend which she is fighting. 
What is it? 

Then France took a hand in the matter and 
decided to join in the war. France was far re- 
moved from the seat of trouble and had no ap- 
parent interest in the original quarrel, nor in any 
of its complications, except as an ally of Russia. 
But we have already seen that "treaty obli- 
gations", as such, do not make nations go to war. 
And France is no exception to the rule : Had she 
no interest of her own she certainly would not 
have gone into this terrible war. What, then, was 
France's reason for going to war? An attempt 



10 Socialism and War 

is made of explaining France's entry into the war 
by her desire to revenge herself on Germany, for 
the injury and humiliation suffered by her forty- 
four years ago. It is, to say the least, passing 
strange that a country burning with the passion 
of revenge to the extent of being willing to risk 
the eventualities of a war like the present one, 
should have been able to restrain herself for a gen- 
eration and a half, and that the flames of this 
passion should burst forth now when most of 
those who have witnessed the injury and felt its 
effects most keenly have died out and a new gene- 
ration has arisen to whom the wrongs of 1870- 
1871 are but a distant tradition. The truth is, 
that at no time was the feeling for revenge less 
prevalent in France than at the time immediately 
preceding the outbreak of this war. Besides, going 
to war under the conditions under which this war 
opened was certainly a poor way of revenging her- 
self on Germany. You must remember that 
France was hardly half prepared for a war like 
this, and her allies were even less so. It was also 
well known that Germany's first move after the 
declaration of war would be to overrun France. 
Even if this should not mean final disaster for 
France, it would certainly mean at least enormous 
sacrifices. Such sacrifices are not made in order 



Clearing the Ground 11 

to redress injuries which have been quietly borne 
for forty-four years. 

Then comes the entry of England, even more of 
a puzzler, when only the surface of things is con- 
sidered, than the action of the countries we have 
already discussed. England was not a party to the 
original quarrel. She is neither kith nor kin to the 
Serbs. She had no apparent interest in protecting 
the murderers of the Austrian Archduke; nor in 
the propaganda looking to the "disruption" of the 
Austro-Hungarian Empire. She even had no 
"treaty-obligations" to fall back upon. Her own 
explanation is that she went to war because Bel- 
gian neutrality had been violated. I shall not enter 
here upon a discussion of the question as to 
whether or not England's claim to be the protector 
of small nations, and particularly those that have 
been formally declared neutral by international 
agreement, is well founded. Although I do not 
hesitate to state my conviction that England's 
protection of small nations had about it the air, 
although perhaps not the brutal manner, of 
Russia's protection of the Slavs. It is not neces- 
sary to enter here upon such a historical discussion 
for the reason that England's attitude in the 
present war is quite sufficient to disprove any 
claim, if such be advanced, that England went 



12 Socialism and War 

into this war for the only purpose of protecting 
the principle of the inviolability of neutral 
nations. 

It should be recalled that Belgium is not the 
only country whose neutrality has been violated 
by Germany in this war. Before Belgium was in- 
vaded, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg — a 
country neutralized by international agreement 
in the same manner as was Belgium — ^had been 
invaded by the German army. And yet England 
did not say a word about it, so far as we know. 
England never claimed and does not claim now 
that the violation of the neutrality of Luxemburg 
caused her to draw the sword. There certainly 
is no particular sacredness about Belgian neu- 
trality that would put it in a class by itself as 
compared with the neutrality of other "neutral" 
countries, such as Switzerland or Luxemburg. 
Why, then should England bear with equanimity 
and without so much as a protest the violation of 
Luxemburg's neutrality, and at the same time be 
ready to go to war for the violation of the neutral- 
ity of Belgium? 

Now, this does not necessarily imply, as some 
assert, that England's claim that she was moved 
to enter into this war by the violation of Belgian 
neutrality, is sheer hypocrisy. That is a question 



Clearing the Ground 13 

which need not be gone into here. It is sufficient 
for our purposes that England's discrimination 
between Luxemburg and Belgium proves that if 
England did go into the war because of the viola- 
tion of Belgian neutrality, it is not because of her 
desire to protect the principle of neutrality, but 
because of some vital interest that she has, in 
maintaining the neutrality of Belgium. And we are 
consequently confronted with the problem of dis- 
covering that interest 

And while we are about looking for efficient 
causes we must not restrict ourselves to those 
who willingly entered into the fight, but look into 
the case of all of those who are in the fight 
whether willingly or not. This includes Belgium. 
I have said in the beginning that it takes two to 
make a v/ar. And while it is true that Belgium 
did not go to war in the same sense that the other 
warring countries did, she nevertheless took up 
the fight, having refused Germany's demand for 
a "peaceful" passage through her territory. This 
action on the part of Belgium requires just as 
strong reasons as does the action of the countries 
which formally went to war. In fact even more so. 
For the consequences to Belgium were immeasur- 
ably more serious, and there can be no doubt of 
the fact that Belgium could not but realize the 



14 Socialism and War 

consequences to herself of her defiance of Ger- 
many's wishes. On the other hand, it does not 
seem, on the surface of things, that any harm 
could have resulted to Belgium from a com- 
pliance with Germany's demands. Why, then, 
should Belgium have taken the awful risks con- 
sequent upon the defiance of the greatest and most 
ruthless military power of modern times? 

The idea that Belgium would permit herself to 
be "crucified" on the altar of the neutrality prin- 
ciple — ^the "scrap of paper" which her more 
powerful neighbors signed only to tear up 
whenever it proved an inconvenience — is too 
absurd to contemplate. What interest did she 
have to preserve? The official documents do not 
disclose any. It may be added that Belgium did 
not even have any "honor" to protect. Belgium 
is not a Great Power, and there is therefore 
nothing "dishonorable" for her in submitting to 
the demands of Germany; and her compliance 
would not have involved any loss of position in 
the "council of nations" as she had none to lose. 

The very fact that she was a "neutral" country 
took her out of the category of states, great or 
small, which claim such position. Her position was 
rather that of a ward of the so-called Concert of 
Powers. By the treaty of neutrality she had dis- 



Clearing the Ground 15 

claimed all pretensions as a military power, rely- 
ing on her own arms for the defense of either her 
interests or her "honor". She put herself frankly 
at the mercy of her stronger neighbors. This put 
all considerations of so-called honor out of the 
question. And the only thing that could have 
possibly induced her to pursue the course that she 
did would be some great and vital interest. What 
was it? No representative of Belgium has so far 
given us any intimation thereof. Nor has it been 
suggested by her opponents. The claim has 
recently been put forward on behalf of Germany 
that long before the outbreak of the present war 
Belgium had made an arrangement with either 
France or England or both to pursue the couse 
which she actually did follow in the present war. 
But as to why she would have done so, no ex- 
planation is vouchsafed us. 

The result of our examination of the surface of 
things for the discovery of an efficient cause for 
this war, has thus proven fruitless. The nearest we 
could get to it has been the discovery of an ap- 
parent reason for one of the original parties to the 
quarrel, — that is, if her own declarations be 
taken at their face value; — but absolutely no 
reason whatever for the other party to the quarrel 
to take Austria up, nor any reason for the other 



16 Socialism and War 

countries to intervene and turn what was on its 
face a local quarrel into a world-war. There 
evidently must have been some other reason or 
reasons than those professed by the parties en- 
gaged in this war, — some reason lying deep below 
the surface of things, a reason deep enough and 
comprehensive enough to be an efficient cause for 
a conflagration embracing almost the entire world. 

In leaving the surface of things and the ex- 
planations offered by the combatants themselves, 
we are confronted with a maze of suggestions as 
to who or what caused this war, in which it is at 
first glance rather hard to find one's way. But 
after a while we discover that after all they are 
merely variations on a few easily recognizable 
themes : It is interesting to note in his connection, 
that the only thing on which most of those who 
have so far offered any explanation for the war 
agree, is, that whoever or whatever may be to 
blame for it, capitalism — that is the economic con- 
ditions under which we are living — is not to blame 
for this war. This it true even of Socialist 
writers, and is in striking contrast to the opinions 
expressed by Socialists on the same subject prior 
to the outbreak of the present conflict. 

When we come to classify the explanations 



Clearing the Ground 17 

offered we shall find that they fall under six 
heads : 

The first, and most prevalent in this country, is 
that the German Kaiser is at the bottom of the 
whole trouble. This is also the view of most 
American Socialists. "The German War Lord did 
it, with his little hatchet Militarism" shout most 
American Socialists in chorus. 

Next in importance, because of their number 
and vociferousness, come those who put the 
responsibility for this war upon the Russian Czar. 

Then come those who say that it is all due to 
England's jealousy of Germany's growing trade. 

Then comes a class consisting, as far as I can 
ascertain, of Joshua Wanhope — a Socialist 
writer of some standing and chief editorial writer 
of the New York Call, the most important Social- 
ist newspaper in this country — who puts it up 
squarely to Rothschild. 

These four explanations, as you will have 
noticed, put it up to some particular person, group 
of persons, or nation. Then there are two which 
put the blame on more general causes : One is that 
"autocratic institutions" did it, in their desire to 
stem the rising tide of freedom and democracy; 
the others is that "the ruling classes" did it — not 
the ruling class of any particular country but the 



18 Socialism and War 

ruling classes as a whole, in their desire to crush 
the oncoming revolution. 

Now let us see what there is to these expla- 
nations. 

The first explanation — that the German Kaiser 
did it — should not detain us very long. Mr. Wan- 
hope, whom I have already mentioned, has dis- 
posed of this contention in an article which 
appeared in the Sunday Call last August, 
under the title "Was the German Kaiser Framed 
Up?" In this article, in which Wanhope advances 
his remarkable theory that Rothschild did it, he 
incidentally, and as a preliminary step, disposes of 
the German-Kaiser theory so effectively and in 
such a brilliant manner that I can do no better 
than refer you to that article for detailed and com- 
prehensive treatment of the subject. I shall 
therefore limit myself here to a summary of his 
argument. In substance it is this : — 

It is utterly absurd to imagine that one man 
could bring on such a war as the present one. It 
is particularly absurd for any Socialist to make 
such an assertion. The Materialistic Conception 
of History, which is the basis of all Socialist 
theory, would have to be turned inside out 
before such an explanation of the war could be 
accepted. But you need not necessarily accept 



Clearing the Ground 19 

the Materialistic Conception of History in order 
to see the absurdity of blaming it on the Kaiser. 
All you need is to use some common sense. No 
war, much less a war like the present one, can be 
carried on without the expenditure of immense 
sums of money, such as the War Lord could not 
possibly raise without the assistance and active 
co-operation of the Money Lords. Alone he was 
utterly powerless to cause this war. He cannot 
therefore be considered the real cause of the war, 
and we must look elsewhere if we want to get to 
the bottom of this business. 

All of which is undoubtedly true, and quite self- 
evident. And I may add, that the assertion that 
the German Kaiser did it, by, through, or for Mili- 
tarism, does not really explain anything. It 
reminds me very much of the explanation of the 
mechanism of the world which ascribes the sta- 
bility of our planet to the fact that it is supported 
by a gigantic whale or turtle. The German 
Kaiser went to war because of Militarism. But 
Militarism is no more a first cause than the enor- 
mous whale or turtle on whose back the Earth was 
supposed to rest. The phenomenon which we call 
Militarism itself needs an explanation. It too, 
must have some cause. So that this and similar 
explanations, like the aforementioned explanations 



20 Socialism and War 

of the world-mechanism, simply put the problem 
one remove further back. They are really no 
explanations at all. 

The reasoning that disposes of the Kaiser 
theory of the war, also disposes of the Czar 
theory. If the German Kaiser could not have 
caused the war, the Russian Czar most assuredly 
could not. Neither his military nor his financial 
powers are at all comparable to those of his Ger- 
man coijsin. Furthermore, it must be said in 
defence of the Czar that whatever his trans- 
gressions may be, the crime causing war cannot 
be laid at his door, for he was clearly not the 
prime mover in this drama. The first and last 
steps in the opening chapter of this world-drama 
were taken by the Teutonic Allies. The curtain 
opens on Austria delivering her ultimatum to 
Servia, making demands which it was clear could 
not possibly have been complied with without 
Servia giving up her independence. And it closes 
on Germany declaring war on Russia and France, 
refusing to submit anything to arbitration as re- 
quested by the Czar. All that the Czar did was to 
declare his readiness to go to war if Austria in- 
sisted on crushing Servia. He may not have been 
pacific, but he was certainly passive. The active 
parts were clearly played by his opponents. He 



Clearing the Ground 21 

could not therefore have caused the war. At most 
he may have helped his opponents, whoever or 
whatever may have been the real moving cause 
of this war. 

The theory that Sir Edward Grey — alias 
English jealousy — caused this war is not in any 
better condition as an explanation of events than 
either of the two theories examined so far. 
England was not only not the prime mover in the 
events that led up to the war, but she was actually 
not in it until the war was well under way. It is 
conceded that England tried to have the Austro- 
Servian dispute settled by arbitration; also that 
she was ready to stay out of the war upon certain 
conditions looking towards the protection of Bel- 
gium and France. This would seem a rather 
strange course for the country that wanted to 
bring about the war. But let us pass that over. 
Let us assume that all this was part of a deep- 
laid scheme by which "perfidious Albion" sought 
to inveigle her innocent competitor into a 
disastrous war, — a war, by the way, which this 
same innocent competitor assures us England 
never had the slightest chance of winning. For, as 
is well known, England is not only very jealous, 
but also extremely stupid. Does that, after all, 
explain this war ? 



22 Socialism and War 

I think not. To begin with, English Jealousy, 
like French Revenge, woud have to be of a queer 
kind to cause a war between Germany and Eng- 
land just now. As is well known, Anglo-German 
relations were much more amicable during the 
period immediately preceding the war than they 
had been at any time during this century. This 
condition was due in no small degree to England's 
readiness to make concessions to Germany, a readi- 
ness which sometimes surprised the Germans 
themselves, but which fully accorded with Eng- 
land's declared policy of keeping out of a great 
war as long as she could. It was this policy that 
kept her out of a war with Russia since the 
Crimean War notwithstanding their traditional 
and continued enmity, due to the serious diver- 
gence of interests and intense competition of these 
countries on the Asiatic continent. 

But there is even more serious objection to the 
English Jealousy theory. At most it could explain 
only England's participation in the war. Just as 
French Revenge could explain only French par- 
ticipation in it. Neither could explain the par- 
ticipation of all the other nations. In other 
words, either of these theories might at most 
explain the participation of the respective coun- 
tries to which they apply in the World War, but 



Clearing the Ground 23 

neither separately nor together could they explain 
the bringing about of a World War. England and 
France, it should also be remembered, are ancient 
enemies. The Fashoda incident is still fresh in 
our memory. Granted, however, that English 
Jealousy and French Revenge are sufficient to 
account for France and England now joining 
hands against the common object of their aforesaid 
respective national attributes, how could these 
have caused Russia to take the position which she 
took on the Austro-Servian question, which was 
the pivot on which the question of peace and war 
hinged after Austria set the ball rolling by her 
ultimatum? Assuredly Russia was not going into 
this greatest of all wars known to history merely 
to help her ancient enemy, England — many of 
whose people even now openly declare that the 
alliance with Russia is a disgrace to their country, 
and with whom, it is even now freely asserted, she 
will ultimately have to go to war in order to 
settle their Asiatic and Mediterranean accounts. 

Then there is Belgium to baffle us still further. 
Why should Belgium sacrifice herself on the altar 
of English Jealousy of Germany? 

English Jealousy as an explanation of the great 
World War is, therefore, a complete failure. 

So we must turn to the next explanation in 



24 Socialism and War 

order, — Mr. Rothschild. I bespeak your earnest 
attention for that gentleman. For, fanciful as the 
Rothschild theory seems to be, and utterly 
erroneous though I hope to prove it, it is a laudable 
attempt to cut away from the dry rot and the 
beaten tracks in which most of the discussion 
about the causes of the present war has been wan- 
dering. It has at least the merit of originality 
and of considerable ingenuity. The substance of 
this theory is, that Rothschild, disliking the 
Kaiser, "sicked" him on to the Allies, giving him 
the money necessary to wage war on them, in the 
hope that the poor Kaiser would break his neck 
in the enterprise. To use Mr. Wanhope's own 
expressive phrase: The Kaiser was "framed up" 
by Rothschild, who was acting the part of an in- 
ternational agent provocateur. 

Unfortunately, the theory of a "frame up" does 
not "hold water" upon closer scrutiny. It is con- 
fronted at the very outset with the difficulty that 
every argument which Wanhope advances to 
prove the absurdity of the idea that one 
man could cause such a world-war as is the pre- 
sent conflict, can be advanced with equal force 
against the idea that one man could do it even if 
that one man were Rothschild. Rothschild is by 
no means in a better position to accomplish that 



Clearing the Ground 25 

gigantic feat than is the Kaiser. Of course, by 
"Rothschild" Mr. Wanhope does not mean an 
individual, but the great banking interests. But it 
must be remembered, that by "the Kaiser," and 
"the Czar", when used in this connection, is not 
meant the persons of Wilhelm II, or Nicholas II, 
but the group of which these two worthies are the 
respective heads, otherwise known as "The Mili- 
tary Machine", "The Military Clique", "Junker- 
dom", "The Grand Ducal Cabal", "Hof camarilla", 
etc., etc. In other words: The Military Party in 
Germany and whatever may correspond to it in 
Russia. And if the German Kaiser and the Jun- 
kers who compose the Military Party in that 
country could not bring about the war then surely 
Rothschild with his group of bankers could not 
do it. 

The preference which Wanhope gives to Roth- 
schild over the Kaiser, as a cause of war is based 
on the assumption that Rothschild has sufficient 
money for war-purposes while the Kaiser hasn't. 
But this assumption is clearly unwarranted. 
"Rothschild" has no more money for such pur- 
poses than "the Kaiser". Bankers never lend their 
own money. If those who borrow from bankers, 
including the governments which borrow from 
"Rothschild", would depend on the banker's own 



26 Socialism and War 

money they would be very badly off. In fact a man 
who lends his own money is not a banker. He is 
an investor. It is of the essence of banking that 
you lend other people's money. But when it comes 
to lending other people's money you must ask 
them whether they want their money loaned and 
to whom. Of course, that does not apply to lend- 
ing small sums, nor of comparatively large sums, 
made up of small-fry deposits. But when it 
comes to lending the many billions of dollars 
which the German Kaiser needs to carry on this 
war the gentlemen bankers must ask the capitalist 
class, who alone can furnish it. And if the 
capitalist class as a whole does not want the war, 
the money will not be forthcoming, either through 
the bankers or otherwise. 

Of course, the bankers are themselves an im- 
portant and very influential portion of the capital- 
ist class. But they are not the capitalist class by 
any means. And as a separate group they are by 
no means a more substantial economic group than 
the Kaiser and the "Military Party". Mr. Roth- 
schild's importance is not in his own right, so to 
say, but by virtue of the fact that he usually re- 
presents the capitalist class. And his importance, 
therefore, adheres to him only so long as he does 
in fact represent the capitalist class. The idea, 



Clearing the Ground 27 

therefore, that Mr. Rothschild as Mr. Rothschild, 
that is in his character as banker, representing 
only the banking interests as such, could, with- 
out reference to the capitalist class as a whole, 
furnish the Kaiser with the sinews of war is 
utterly fallacious. This makes it unnecessary for 
us to discuss the reason given by Wanhope for 
Rothschild's dislike of the Kaiser which led him 
to arrange the "frame up". That is, in so far as 
those reasons are sufficient for Mr. Rothschild in 
his narrow and limited character of banker with 
special banking interests. There is still the possi- 
bility that Mr. Rothschild is speaking in his larger 
capacity of leader of the capitalist class, re- 
presenting not narrow banking interests as such 
and distinguished from the interests of the capital- 
ist class as a whole, but the entire capitalist class, 
or at least its controlling economic powers. But 
then Mr. Rothschild expands into the capitalist 
class not only in his money-furnishing capacity, 
but also in the reasons for the dislike of the 
Kaiser. That is, the dislike of the Kaiser must 
be by the capitalist class, or at least its most im- 
portant section, and then the question is to be 
answered: "What's the matter with the Kaiser?" 
from the capitalist point of view. 

The suggestion is offered that Mr. Rothschild — 



2g Socialism and Wai* 

that is, the capitalist class — does not like the 
interference of autocrats in his business, and 
therefore prefers the republican or parliamentary 
form of government. But this suggestion is in- 
sufficient on its face as a reason for the "framing 
up" of the Kaiser. In the first place, it must be 
conceded that autocratic as the German Kaiser 
undoubtedly is, he is considerably less so than his 
cousin the Russian Czar. That he should be 
singled out for destruction while his cousin of 
Petrograd is not only let alone but actually made 
a pet of is certainly strange. As a matter of fact 
the liking of the capitalist class for republican- 
democratic forms of government is a mere tra- 
dition. It would be no difficult matter to prove 
that while the capitalist class can and does thrive 
very well under republican-democratic forms of 
government, and under certain circumstances 
actually prefers them, its ardor for these forms of 
government has not only cooled off considerably 
during the life of this generation, but has actually 
largely turned into its opposite. So that, on the 
whole, the capitalist class to-day not only gets on 
very well with "the Kaiser", but grows to like his 
government more and more from day to day. In 
fact, the only kind of autocratic government of 
which the capitalist class still disapproves — in so 



Clearing the Ground 29 

far as it still does disapprove of any kind of auto- 
cratic government — is the obsolete one of the 
Kussian type. 

And yet we are asked to believe that Mr, Roth- 
schild, representing the capitalist class, overlooked 
the Russian Czar, indeed entered into alliance with 
him, but singled out the German Kaiser for 
destruction. 

But let us pass that for a moment. Let us 
assume that for some reason as yet undiscovered 
by us the capitalist class does not approve of the 
Kaiser, and that its business-committee, the 
"banking interests", have decided to put him out 
of business. Is it at all likely that they would go 
about it in the manner assumed by the Rothschild 
theory of the war? 

It should be remembered that the Kaiser could 
not be where he is, nor what he is, if the capitalist 
class disapproved of him as thoroughly as must be 
assumed in order to make this theory at all in- 
telligible. If the capitalist class disapproved of 
the Kaiser as seriously as all that, he could no more 
maintain himself as the head of the German people 
than Mr. Huerta could as the head of the Mexican 
people when "we" disapproved of him; but if he 
could perchance maintain himself at the head of 
the governmental machine of Germany, it is beyond 



30 Socialism and War 

possibility that he could not maintain that govern- 
ment in the degree of efficiency which it has at- 
tained, and, above all, he could not maintain the 
German army in that degree of efficiency that 
makes it the formidable weapon of warfare that 
it undoubtedly is. To maintain the German army 
in its present state of efficiency "three things are 
needed — money, money, and money." 

If it were true, therefore, that the capitalist 
class wanted to put the Kaiser out of business, 
the surest, indeed the only way of accomplishing 
that result would be for them not to give 
him the money which was necessary to put his 
government and his army and navy in their pre- 
sent state of efficiency. That would probably have 
compelled him either to entirely abdicate or to 
change his attitude towards the capitalist class by 
instituting such reforms in the government of 
Germany as the capitalist class might demand. 
And if he should prove utterly unamenable to 
reason, then it would have been time enough to call 
in outsiders. And then it would hardly have been 
a war, it would probably have been called "inter- 
vention" — an enterprise much less costly, and, 
above all, much more certain of the desired result 
than a war like the present one. It would seem an 
utterly absurd and extremely unbusinesslike way 



Clearing the Ground 31 

of "framing up" the Kaiser to first give him 
all the money he needed for the purpose of so per- 
fecting his war-machine as to make it well-nigh 
unconquerable — if not actually so — and then try 
to beat him at his own fighting-game. 

The absurdity of the idea becomes even more 
apparent when we recall that according to Mr. 
Wanhope's own statement — a statement un- 
doubtedly true — even with his military 
machine in its present state of efficiency, the 
Kaiser could not have entered upon this war with- 
out the funds supplied to him by Mr. Rothschild, 
representing the capitalists. In other words, 
without these funds his war machine could not 
have functioned on a war basis. He could not 
therefore have gone into the war, or if he did go 
into it he would not have maintained himself for 
any appreciable length of time. Why, then, did the 
capitalist class furnish the Kaiser with the neces- 
sary funds to give him the fighting chance, a fight- 
ing chance which he, in his collective capacity 
undoubtedly a good "fighting-man", considered 
good enough to risk a war of aggression on, a 
fighting-chance, indeed, which may yet prove Mr. 
"Rothschild" to have made a grievous error in his 
calculations as to the outcome of the fighting. The 
idea is simply preposterous I 



32 Socialism and War 

You must remember that this war is no play 
matter even for the capitalist class. I know it is the 
fashion among Socialists to assume and assert 
that the burdens and miseries of war are borne 
wholly by the working class, and that for the 
capitalist class it is a sort of picnic, abounding in 
fun and excitement, besides being a good business. 
I shall not enter here upon a discussion as to how 
far this is true of war in general. But as to the 
present war, I must say that the idea is utterly 
baseless. This war is certainly no picnic for any 
social class. Certainly not to the capitalist class, 
either in the Alliance or the Entente countries. 
It is even doubtful whether it is good business. 
The destruction of property is entirely too great 
for that. As to the destruction of life it is so 
appalling, and so indiscriminate as to class, as to 
make the sacrifices of the capitalist class very real 
and very substantial. In fact, from their point 
of view their sacrifices are much greater than 
those of the working class, which has nothing but 
its limbs and lives to offer for its country. Of 
course, this last assertion on the part of the capi- 
talist class is due entirely to its narrow- 
minded capitalist outlook upon the world and 
inhabitants thereof. But even this erroneous 
claim is of importance when we come to 



Clearing the Ground 33 

consider the likelihood of the capitalist class going 
into this war either thoughtlessly or needlessly. 
For even an erroneous idea born of narrow- 
minded class-bigotry is a real psychological factor 
which may exert a great influence upon action. 

There can, therefore, be no doubt of the fact 
that the capitalist class is backing up this war 
with its money and its lives not because it wanted 
to "frame up" somebody so that he may break 
his neck, but because some great capitalist in- 
terests are involved; interests for which it con- 
siders it worth while to make great sacrifices in 
lives and money — which accounts for the enthu- 
siasm displayed by the capitalist class for this 
war in all the belligerent countries, by the capital- 
ists fighting on the side of the Kaiser at least as 
much as, if not more than, by the capitalists of 
the countries fighting against him. What is that 
interest ? So that we are still on the quest for the 
interest of any of those engaged in this war. 

And our labors are not likely to be better re- 
warded by an examination of the two remaining 
explanations. That this is a war of "autocratic 
institutions" on the one hand against Freedom 
and Democracy on the other is a proposition which 
needs only to be stated in order to be refuted. For 
when you have stated it you will find yourself at 



34 Socialism and War 

a loss to point out which is which. And unless it 
is known in advance on which side you are no one 
will be able to tell which you refer to as "Auto- 
cratic Institutions" and which as "Freedom and 
Democracy." It seems to me quite self-evident 
that in a war in which Germany, Austria and 
Turkey are ranged on the one side and Russia, 
France and England with Japan on the other, it 
is quite impossible for any quibbler on either side 
to claim that the war was started either by Free- 
dom and Democracy to stamp out the remnants 
of Autocracy or by Autocracy to stem the "rising 
tide of Democracy". It seems to me self-evident 
that were this a struggle between Autocracy and 
Democracy as such, the alignment of powers would 
have been quite a different one. If anything can 
be considered certain in international affairs it is 
this : In such a struggle the Czar and the Kaiser 
would be fighting side by side instead of against 
each other. 

So there remains only the explanation that the 
ruling classes of all the countries engaged in this 
war, have brought this war about in order to 
stifle the revolutionary movement. 

I must confess I am somewhat biased in favor 
of this explanation, — it accords with an opinion 
long held by Socialists that when the capitalist 



Clearing the Ground 35 

class of any country finds itself threatened by 
internal revolution it will resort to external war 
in an attempt to weaken the working class phy- 
sically and morally. It must also be conceded that 
it is the only explanation offered thus far which 
shows any appreciation of the laws of cause and 
effect and of the relation in which a means stands 
to its object. Those who take this view at least 
can point to the fact that this war has had the 
result of practically destroying the international 
Socialist movement, or at least incapacitating it 
for decades to come. At least that will in all likeli- 
hood be its effect, unless this madness is carried 
so far — the war carried on so long — that it 
will bring the entire capitalist system to the verge 
of collapse, when the sheer weight of the accumu- 
lated misery shall have caused a decided re- 
vulsion of feeling on the part of the working 
class. If, therefore, the purpose of the ruling 
classes had been the disorganization of the work- 
ing class and the crippling of its emancipatory 
movement, they certainly could not have selected 
a better means of accomplishing their purpose 
than the present war. 

And yet, notwithstanding the obvious tempt- 
ation to ascribe to a ruthless and crafty foe the 
deliberate designing of a certain baneful result 



36 Socialism and War 

which his acts have brought about, I am sure that 
a careful and dispassionate examination of the 
actual facts will not justify such a conclusion. The 
break-down of the international labor movement 
was undoubtedly a prize well worth making some 
sacrifices for. But neither the condition of the 
movement in the different countries during the 
time immediately preceding the outbreak of the 
war, nor the manner in which the war was brought 
about, nor yet the manner in which it has been 
conducted since its outbreak, at all accord with 
the theory of either a real or a sham battle be- 
tween the different groups of the ruling classes 
for the purpose of destroying the revolutionary 
efficacy of the working class. 

The idea of this war being a sham battle as far 
as the ruling classes of the different countries are 
concerned, and that the war is a "frame-up" 
upon the working class, deserves to be classed for 
absurdity and preposterousness with the theory 
that Rothschild "framed up" the Kaiser. In fact 
it goes that theory one better. For that theory 
at least conceds the realty of the fighting on the 
part of all concerned, while this proceeds upon the 
assumption that the only real fighting is done by 
members of the working class. But as I have al- 
ready stated before, in this war at least, the ruling 



Clearing the Ground 37 

classes fight with might and main as much as the 
working class. There is certainly no sham about 
the fighting in this war, and this applies about 
equally to all concerned. So that the only version 
of this theory that can be seriously considered is 
that one, or some, or all the countries engaged in 
the present war deliberately brought about this 
greatest of conflicts in an effort to avert an im- 
pending revolution or throttle a growing revo- 
lutionary movement. 

The efficacy of fighting a foreign enemy as a 
means of suppressing an internal enemy, has been 
brilliantly vindicated in this very war, the causes 
of which we are investigating. The recipe is, how- 
ever, of ancient origin, and has been repeatedly 
tried with marked success by sundry rulers and 
ruling classes in ancient as well as modern times. 
War might well be called the grave of incipient 
revolutions. But, on the other hand, war might 
with equal propriety be called the mother of re- 
volutions, for many a revolution was born of war, 
or at least had its birth hastened by war. And 
we do not have to go far afield into history in 
order to find examples of war-born revolutions. 
The present French Republic is the result of a 
revolution brought about by a war, — the Franco- 
Prussian War of 1870-71 ; and the last great war 



38 Socialism and War 

preceding the present war, the Russo-Japanese 
War, had as its aftermath a revolution, — the 
Russian Revolution. 

This double-character of war as a preventive of 
revolutions and as a cause of revolutions, naturally 
requires extreme care in its handling whenever it 
is desired to make use of it in its first character. 
Two circumstances must unite before any ruler 
or ruling class will resort to it as a means of 
combating a revolutionary movement : the danger 
of revolution must be imminent, and the prospect- 
ive war must have some inherent element of popu- 
larity. War is a serious matter for any country, 
at any time. It is particularly serious for a 
country threatened with revolution, both as a war 
and as a possible revolution-breeder. Going to war 
to prevent a revolution is therefore in the nature 
of a capital operation, which no one would be fool- 
hardy enough to undergo unless the danger sought 
to be avoided is so imminent as to make death 
almost a certainty if the operation is not risked. 
On the other hand, no matter how grave the 
danger, the operation will not be undertaken 
unless the circumstances are such as to give some 
chance of success instead of insuring the end 
which it is desired to avoid. An ^^?^popular war 
would be almost sure to hasten an impending re- 



Clearing the Ground 39 

volution, instead of averting it. Let us therefore 
make a brief survey of conditions in the countries 
engaged in the present war in order to ascertain 
whether they were such as to justify the assump- 
tion that all or any of them could have caused 
this war in order to prevent an impending re- 
volution. 

There was Austria-Hungary, who set the ball 
rolling. I do not think there is a man living who 
would dare to assert that there was in that country 
the slightest indication of impending revolution, 
not only imminent but even remote. It is true 
that in Austria at least there was a strong Social- 
ist movement, but the movement was of a kind 
that, whatever else might be thought of it, surely 
no one could think for a moment that it would or 
might break out into revolt at any time within the 
near future. And by this I do not at all mean to 
reflect on the revolutionary character of the 
Austrian Socialist movement, although one is very 
much tempted to do so, seeing the way they re- 
acted on the call to arms issued by their govern- 
ment. Hindsight is proverbially better than fore- 
sight. And we may now from the vantage-point of 
after the fact safely place a low estimate on the 
revolutionary character of the Austrian Socialist 
movement. But we do not need our post-bellum 



40 Socialism and War 

experience to take the revolutionary measure of 
the Austrian Socialist movement. "Revolutionary" 
being used here in the sense and from the point of 
view of the government which is supposed to be 
seeking to suppress it. In this sense "revolution" 
means an acute eruption. For a government will 
no more attempt to prevent an "evolutionary" re- 
volution by means of a war, than an individual 
would attempt to cure by a capital operation one 
of those chronic ailments with which men often 
live to die of old age. 

And what was said of Austria is equally true of 
her ally and mentor, Germany. The Socialist move- 
ment in Germany was, indeed, considerably 
stronger than in Austria. But to offset 
that, the spirit of orderliness, decorum, and "evo- 
lutionism" was much stronger in the German 
movement than in the Austrian. Its determination 
not to be provoked into a premature fight was well 
known. Whether from choice or necessity it had 
long ago resolved to attain its purposes by legal 
ends, and it was quite certain in July, 1914, that it 
would not take the initiative to transfer the fight 
to extra-legal fields ; at least, not unless something 
quite extraordinary happened to swerve it from 
its former course. 

So much for the Austro-German combination. 



Clearing the Ground 41 

And substantially the same is true of the other 
side. 

There was, indeed, a very serious strike in 
Russia immediately preceding the war. But it 
was certainly not of a character to warrant a 
resort to war. And of all European rulers the 
Russian Czar was the least likely to be tempted 
to resort to war as means of suppressing a revo- 
lution. The disastrous effects of the Russo- 
Japanese War on the internal affairs of his 
Empire were too fresh in his memory for that. It 
may also be stated parenthetically that had the 
Russian Czar really found himself in such a cri- 
tical situation as to require a resort to such heroic 
measures, his good friend and cousin of Berlin 
would have come to his assistance, and if there 
had been a war at all it would have assumed an 
entirely different character. 

Of Russia's allies, neither France nor England 
were threatened with any revolutionary move- 
ment that anybody was aware of. In France there 
were some individuals who talked loud, but the 
old saying that "barking dogs don't bite" seems 
to have been specially cut to fit them. They had 
barked for years without doing anything in par- 
ticular. It may also be remarked that they did 
not even bark their loudest about this time. So 



42 Socialism and War 

there was no occasion for any extraordinary 
measures in the way of revolution-preventing. 
And certainly not the slightest reason for a war 
on that score. 

England hadn't had a revolution nor any real 
revolutionary movement in so long a time that the 
idea of England going into this world-struggle 
in order to avert a revolution strikes one like an 
echo from Gilbert and Sullivan. As far as we know 
neither the Parliamentary Labor Party, nor the 
Independent Labor Party, nor the British Socialist 
Party were at all likely to institute a revolution 
within the near future. It is true that there were 
two disturbing factors to ruffle England's peace 
of mind in the persons of Mr. Hilaire Belloc and 
Sir Edward Carson. But the danger was hardly 
imminent enough to require immediate mobili- 
zation. Mr. Belloc's mystical speculations had 
hardly assumed definite enough shape to make 
immediate action urgent. And Sir Edward's 
differences with His Majesty's Government were 
of a kind that are never settled by the same means 
as are differences between ruling classes and the 
"lower orders". If Sir Edward's opposition had 
really become very serious the chances are that 
the dispute would have been terminated by Sir 
Edward becoming His Majesty's Government and 



Clearing the Ground 43 

Mr. Asquith turning into His Majesty's 
Opposition. 

In short, the very first element of a situation 
requiring a war to suppress "the rising tide of the 
revolution" — namely the presence of that "ris- 
ing tide" — is entirely lacking. As without 
a threatening revolution there could be no war to 
suppress it, it is unnecessary to discuss the 
second question, namely, whether the war could 
have been expected to be popular enough to pre- 
vent a revolution if one had been threatened. 
Nevertheless, I shall say, "for the purposes of the 
record", that the war did have all the chances of 
proving a very popular one in all the countries 
concerned. But this raises another and very 
interesting question: Why is this war so popular? 
In the lectures which are to come I shall therefore 
endeavor to answer not only the question "What 
brought about the war?", but also the question: 
"What makes this war so immensely popular?" 



II 

THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF 
THE WAR 

In my first lecture I stated that, in this coun- 
try at least, it seems to be agreed on all sides, 
even among Socialists, that economic condi- 
tions or economic development did not cause 
this war. And I intimated that I did not 
share this well-nigh universal opinion, and 
was inclined to agree with what is, or rather 
used to be, considered the Socialist view in such 
matters and ascribed the gigantic struggle 
now raging in Europe to economic causes* 

The opposition to, or dissent from, what might 
be termed the economic view of the war, was thus 
stated by a Socialist in a Socialist publication, — 
Dr. Isaac A. Hourwich, writing . in the New 
Review : 

"There is a tendency among orthodox Socialists 



The Economic Causes of the War 45 

to blame everything upon capitalism, and more 
specifically upon the capitalist class, or 'the capi- 
talist governments.* This habit of thought is 
particularly strong in the United States, where 
the capitalists are the dominant, although not the 
only power in politics. As I have had occasion 
to show elsewhere, even in the United States the 
capitalists and the wage-workers are not the only 
social-economic classes. In Europe there is no 
nation whose government can be scientifically 
defined as a 'capitalist government' . . . The 
manufacturers of armaments are the only group 
of the capitalist class that is directly interested in 
militarism. The Imperialistic adventures further 
the interests only of a limited group of manufact- 
urers, directly or indirectly interested in the ex- 
port trade with the Colonies. Nowadays piracy 
is no longer an integral part of maritime trade, 
as in the days of the Phoenicians. German manu- 
facturers can safely ship their goods to South 
America in competition with English manufact- 
urers, without the protection of the German navy. 
It is therefore misleading to seek the causes of 
this war in the wiles of 'the capitalist class.' " 

Now, while I acknowledge myself belonging 
among those here referred to as "orthodox Socia- 



46 Socialism and War 

lists", and intend to present here their point of 
view, I have no sympathy whatever with the 
manner in which some of them attempt to ex- 
plain the phenomenon of war generally and the 
present war in particular. Such hackneyed 
phrases as "wars are the result of capitalism", 
"capitalists need new markets", etc., etc., unfor- 
tunately so much in vogue among Socialists, are 
either false or meaningless. And I do not at all 
blame those to whom such formulas are offered 
as a ready-made explanation of all wars — without 
any real attempt to look into the facts of the 
particular situation — for rejecting them as an 
unwarranted attempt to "blame it" all on capital- 
ism, and an easy way for the mentally lazy to 
escape the necessity of studying a rather compli- 
cated problem. That all wars were not the result 
of capitalism is, of course, self-evident, as quite 
a considerable number of wars took place before 
the capitalistic era. But it is not even true that 
capitalism is particularly warlike, as a glance 
into the pages of history will conclusively show. 
On consulting any reliable history we shall find, 
for instance, that the XIX Century, the century 
which saw the greatest development of capitalism, 
was far from being a war-era. On the contrary: 



The Economic Causes of the War 47 

compared with the two or three centuries that 
preceded it, it was of a distinctly peaceful 
character. 

We shall find, furthermore, that England, the 
classic country of capitalism in the XIX Century, 
was very far from being a warlike nation during 
that century. Whatever may have been John 
BulFs reputation for bellicoseness in the days of 
long ago, he was a distinctly pacific individual dur- 
ing the past one hundred years. We are therefore 
confronted with the indisputable fact that the 
most capitalistic nation in the most capitalistic 
age was distinctly peaceful. 

In fact, an examination of the chronology and 
geography of wars during the last couple of 
hundred years might easily lead us to the con- 
clusion that the world instead of becoming more 
warlike with the growth of capitalism was steadi- 
ly becoming more and more pacific under its in- 
fluence. Let us consider this: The "civilized 
world", that is, the capitalistic world, hasn't had 
a general war in a hundred years— since the close 
of the Napoleonic Wars; and no great war in 
forty-four years— since the Franco-Prussian 
War. The Russo-Turkish War of 1878 was hardly 
a great war; and even that was thirty-six years 
ago. In fact, the Franco-Prussian War was not 



48 Socialism and War 

only the last great European war, but was the 
last war of any kind waged by any of the capital- 
istically developed nations of Europe among 
themselves. All that there was of war, in Europe, 
since then was confined to one spot — ^the most un- 
capitalistic corner of Europe — ^the Balkans. 

The conclusion that capitalism is — as such — 
peaceful, would, however, be just as erroneous 
as the contrary assertion that it is, by its very 
nature, warlike. The truth is, that capitalism — 
as such — is neither peaceful nor warlike. Different 
groups within capitalist society are either peace- 
ful or warlike as their interests, or supposed in- 
terests, may dictate. There is, therefore, very 
seldom any unanimity of opinion in the capital- 
ist class as to the desirability of war at any given 
time in any given nation. Nevertheless, it must not 
be assumed that the capitalist class as a whole 
and the nations which it dominates are utterly 
devoid of character on the subject of war and 
peace ; or that this character stands in no organic 
connection with its capitalist economy. A careful 
examination of "all the facts in the case" will 
show that the question of war and peace is deeply 
rooted in the economy of nations. Our conclusion 
must, therefore be : capitalism is neither peaceful 



The Economic Causes of the War 49 

nor warlike, but has its peaceful and warlike 
moods, corresponding to different phases of its 
development. 

Without going into detail it may be stated as 
a general proposition that the life-history of cap- 
italist society may be divided, for our purposes, 
into three epochs— two of them warlike and one 
peaceful In its youthful days capitalism is com- 
bative— -its growth from infancy to manhood be- 
ing accompanied by a series of wars in which its 
distinctively capitalistic character asserts itself. 
After it has reached to "man's estate" capitalism 
grows pacific; and its attention, in the prime of 
its vigor, is directed mainly to household economy, 
in the belief that a well-ordered household and 
"attention to business" are the sure basis of pros- 
perity. But after capitalism — understanding 
under that term a society based on the principle 
of free competition-— has passed its zenith, when 
on the downward grade, it develops extreme irri- 
tability of temper and returns to the warlike mood 
of its earlier days. 

The history of England well illustrates this 
proposition. There was a time when England 
was a very warlike country. The two hundred 
years which elapsed from the accession of Eliza- 



50 Socialism and War 

beth to the close of the Seven Years' War wit- 
nessed an almost unbroken procession of English 
wars ; and it was during these two hundred years 
that England established her position as the lead- 
ing commercial and manufacturing country of 
the world. But with the close of the Seven Years' 
War, when England finally established her posi- 
tion in the vanguard of commercialism and 
reached her capitalistic majority, so to say, she 
"settled down" and entered upon a pacific era. 
And she continued in her pacific mood until the 
day before yesterday. It is true that she fought 
the great Napoleonic Wars during the early part 
of this period. But the Napoleonic Wars were 
quite exceptional in their character, produced by 
exceptional circumstances, and do not militate 
against England's generally pacific character dur- 
ing the period under consideration. During the 
one hundred years which elapsed between the 
close of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of 
the present war England practically had no 
European war, hardly any real war in fact. Cer- 
tainly nothing that could compare either in size 
or importance with any of the great struggles of 
previous epochs in her history or with the great 
struggle now raging. 



The Economic Causes of the War 51 

I have searched my memory for the record of 
any European war conducted by England during 
the past one hundred years, and the only thing 
that I can recall is her participation in the 
Crimean War. But that certainly was no war, as 
far as England's participation in it was con- 
cerned. It was merely a warlike incident or epi- 
sode. And those who are familiar with that inci- 
dent will recall that the English capitalists were 
dragged into that war against their will. The true 
representatives of capitalism were strongly op- 
posed to that war, and when England was finally 
dragged into it, her half-heartedness in the affair 
limited her participation therein to the sending 
of an expeditionary force. 

That incident occurred sixty years ago, and 
since then England has been at peace with all her 
European neighbors. She has manifested the 
same pacific character in other quarters of the 
globe, and down into the modern imperialistic era. 
Let there be no mistake about it. Notwithstand- 
ing her exceptional position as a world-empire 
with interests in every quarter of the globe, Eng- 
land was not a leader of nations in the modern era 
of imperialism, but modestly followed the lead of 
others, principally that of Germany. 



52 Socialism and War 

It is sufficient to look into the history of the so- 
called "partition" of Africa, during the past 
thirty years or so, to find the proof of this assert- 
ion. Those who have followed the manifestations 
of modern imperialism in that part of the world 
will doubtless recall that back in 1882, when Ger- 
many started on her Imperialistic career, Ger- 
many made a proposition to England for "joint 
action" — joint occupation or partition — of the 
Western coast of Africa, particularly Southwest 
Africa. That was at a time when Germany was 
a much weaker power than she is to-day, and her 
imperialism much less vigorous. England, on the 
other hand, was the undisputed mistress of the 
seas, and in possession of South Africa, which 
brought at least Southwest Africa within her 
"sphere of influence", when viewed from the 
modern imperialistic point of view. And had 
England been as imperialistic as Germany, or as 
she is herself to-day, she would either have gone 
into the joint adventure with Germany, or 
grabbed that particular slice of Africa herself 
without any partners. But that was in 1882, and 
England was still dreaming dreams of peace. So 
she did not make any move, with the result that, 
after a couple of years of waiting, Germany con- 



The Economic Causes of the War 53 

eluded that there was nothing either to expect or 
to fear from England; she therefore undertook 
the job single-handed and occupied what is now 
known as German South West Africa. 

The same story, in a general way, is told by the 
history of the occupation of the eastern coast of 
Africa. For years England refused to take ad- 
vantage of the many opportunities which pre- 
sented themselves to her for the purpose of 
strengthening her position in that region by ex- 
tending its dominion. 

A very marked proof of England's general pa- 
cific character even as late as 1890, and the re- 
moteness of the possibility of war to the minds 
of her statesmen, is shown by her cession of the 
island of Heligoland to Germany in that year. If 
you will bear in mind that the first big naval de- 
feat suffered by England in the present war was 
inflicted upon her by the Germans using their 
naval base at Heligoland, you will appreciate how 
important a strategic position Heligoland is, and 
how little England must have thought of war 
with Germany in 1890. How times have 
changed since then ! To-day even the most pacific of 
Englishmen, those who are opposed to England's 
exacting any kind of "compensation" from Ger- 



54 Socialism and War 

many after a successful termination of the war, 
still insist, when discussing the terms of peace as 
they ought to be, on making an exception of Heli- 
goland. This England should have back by all 
means. And yet she gave it away freely less than 
twenty-five years ago. 

Now, as I have already stated, this apparent 
love for peace is not at all a characteristic of the 
English nation. There was a time when England 
was one of the most warlike nations of Europe. 
And as I shall attempt to show later on, England 
is again becoming warlike. But for the present 
we are interested in her pacific period. It is, of 
course, hard to determine upon an exact date 
when the change from the earlier warlike period 
to the pacific one which I have just been discuss- 
ing occurred. Such transitions are more or less 
slow and gradual. In a general way it may be 
said, however, as already intimated, that the early 
warlike period of English Capitalism closed with 
the Seven Years' War. The first manifestation 
of England's turn to a more pacific mood was 
her management of our War of Independence. 

It may perhaps jar on the sensitive ears of our 
good patriots, but the truth must be told — and the 
truth is, that the success of our War of Independ- 



The Economic Causes of the War 55 

ence was due not so much to the prowess and love 
of liberty of the "embattled farmers" at Bunker 
Hill and Lexington or to the military genius of 
George Washington, as to the fact that England 
did not care to exert herself overmuch, and to 
make great sacrifices in order to keep us. If 
England had wanted badly to keep the Colonies, 
there is no doubt but that the war would have had 
another result. Of course nobody can tell now 
whether England could in any event have managed 
to keep us as a dependency until the present day. 
But it is safe to say that she could have retained 
us as a colony for a considerable time after 1783. 
That we gained our independence at the time we 
did was due mainly, if not entirely, to the fact 
that England did not really care very much 
whether we remained a subject colony or became 
a free and independent nation. Of course, if she 
could have kept us without a fight she would have 
done so. But the practical question that con- 
fronted England was not whether or not she 
wanted to keep us, but whether or not she was 
ready to wage a real war in order to keep us. And 
this she decided in the negative. 

I stated in my first lecture that it takes two to 
make a war. And that before two states will go 



56 Socialism and War 

to war there must be ah object worth fighting 
for, for both sides. In our War of Independence we 
had a great object to fight for — independence. 
But England did not think that depriving us of 
our independence was object enough for her to 
wage a great war about. And so after making a 
show of fight, sufficient to find that we were in 
earnest and ready to fight a big fight, and that 
her own people did not think the fight worth 
while, official England capitulated, and allowed 
us our independence. In this connection it is well 
to remember that about thirty years after the 
conclusion of the War of Independence we waged 
a second war with England, the War of 1812. 
And if you will consult a serious history you will 
find that in that war we got a sound thrashing 
from England, notwithstanding the fact that we 
were then a much bigger people, with over thirty 
years of existence as an independent nation, and 
that England was exhausted by a generation of 
war in Europe — the great Napoleonic Wars. If 
England could "lick" us in 1812 she would have 
had no trouble in doing so thirty years earlier, 
had she really cared to. 

But why did she not care? 

Of course, we all remember Burke's great 



The Economic Causes of the War 57 

speech on Conciliation with America — ^the beauti- 
ful periods and fiery invective in which he proved 
our right to independence to his and our satis- 
faction, but which when stripped of their orator- 
ical garb simply proved that the English public 
opinion which he expressed did not consider 
America worth fighting for. Of course, being 
a true orator, Burke only glided on the surface 
of things. You will not, therefore, find the true 
reason for England's unwillingness to fight in 
order to retain us, in his celebrated oration. But 
you will find it in a less celebrated, though no less 
important work — Adam Smith's Essay on Colo- 
nies. Smith's Essay was the meat of the meal of 
which Burke's Oration was the dessert, or rather 
the sparkling champagne. 

As you know. Smith was the father of classical 
political economy — the sacred gospel of Capital- 
ism in its vigor of manhood. And his Essay on 
Colonies is part of this gospel, twin-brother and 
necessary corollary to the main article of faith — 
Free Trade. 

The sum and substance of the Essay is that 
colonies are not worth having. Smith's major 
premise — proved by a long and rather devious pro- 
cess of economic reasoning — is that exclusive trade 



58 Socialism and War 

between the "mother-country" and the colony, or 
preferential tariffs in favor of the "mother- 
country", are harmful not only to the colony and 
the world at large, but also to the "mother- 
country". The proper policy, therefore, to be pur- 
sued by the "mother-country" is to permit the 
colony to trade freely and on equal terms with 
the world at large — free trade for the colonies. 
It then follows as an irresistible conclusion that 
colonies are nothing but an unnecessary trouble 
and expense. If France and the rest of the world, 
can trade with an English colony on the same 
terms as England herself, England not only does 
riot derive any special benefit from "possessing" 
the colony, but is in fact at a disadvantage, 
because she must meet the competition of the 
whole world as if she didn't "own" the colony at 
all, while at the same time carrying the burden 
of her civil administration and military pro- 
tection. "Possessing" a colony, under such cir- 
cumstances, is like possessing a white elephant. 

This is the spring that fed the well of Burkian 
oratory. It flowed freely for over a hundred 
years, determining the character not only of a 
good deal of English oratory but also of English 
colonial and foreign policy. 



The Economic Causes of the War 59 

Towards the close of this period, just one 
hundred years after our War of Independence, 
we find England doing in South Africa what she 
had done a hundred years before in North 
America. As I have already stated, England was 
rather tardy in asserting her rights of sovereignty 
in the Southern part of the African continent. It 
took some time and considerable complications 
before she asserted her overlordship over the two 
Boer Republics adjoining her settlements at and 
near the Cape. Shortly after she did bring these 
two republics under her protecting wing, the 
Boers inhabiting them followed our example of a 
hundred years before and declared their inde- 
pendence; and upon England's refusal to accede, 
they took up arms to fight for their 
freedom. The "embattled farmers" of the Boer 
country, like our forefathers of old, defeated the 
English at their Bunker Hill — which they called 
Majuba Hill — and England speedily gave in, con- 
cluding a peace whereby it recognized their inde- 
pendence. Much as in our case. 

But here the analogy ends. The Boers, also, 
had another war with England — some fifteen 
years after their War of Independence. But the 
second Boer War took an entirely different course 



60 Socialism and War 

from the second American War. Or, rather, the 
course of the war itself was similar enough, for 
England was victorious in both. But the results 
were as dissimilar as they could possibly be. After 
the War of 1812, England, her victories notwith- 
standing, was content to leave not only our inde- 
pendence unimpaired but our territory un- 
diminished, never attempting to take away a foot 
of our soil. But when the second Boer War was 
over the two Boer Republics were no more; 
England insisted on robbing the Boers of the in- 
dependence of which she had practically made 
them a free gift only a few years before. 

But during the few years which elapsed between 
the first and the second Boer War a change of 
spirit had come over England and over the world 
at large. The new imperialistic era had set in. 
When the first Boer War took place, in 1884, the 
wave of the new imperialism was just beginning 
to rise. But it had not reached England yet. 
England was still the classic land of Capitalism 
— ^the land of cldssic Capitalism: of classic 
political economy, free trade, Manchesterism 
generally, including Adam Smith's Essay on 
Colonies, But during the second Boer War 
Joseph Chamberlain, of Birmingham, was the 
director of England's colonial policy. 



The Economic Causes of the War 61 

The change was significant. For a century 
Manchester was the leading city in England, 
industrially speaking. It was the center of 
England's textile industry, which meant of the 
world's textile industry. And the textile industry 
was the leading industry of the capitalist world. 
Capitalism meant textiles. Manchester was, 
therefore, the industrial capital of the world. Its 
political representatives were the typical states- 
men of Capitalism. Its philosophy was the philo- 
sophy of Capitalism. 

Birmingham does not deal in textiles. It is 
the city of iron and steel, the headquarters of the 
iron and steel industry of England. Its peculiar 
influence on English politics is of recent date, but 
quite marked in its character. In 1895 Joseph 
Chamberlain, that is to say, iron and steel, entered 
the cabinet in a leading position — symbolizing the 
entry of iron and steel into high place in politics 
in recognition of the fact that the centre of gravity 
in the industrial world had shifted from textiles 
to iron and steel. To-day iron and steel is the lead- 
ing industry of Capitalism. Capitalism is in its 
Iron Age. If you want to know how the capitalist 
world, the world of business, is faring — if you 
want to touch the pulse of Capitalism — ^you look 



62 Socialism and War 

for the market reports on iron and steel. And if 
you are looking for the real power in present-day- 
politics in the most highly developed countries 
of the world you will be wise to mark the repre- 
sentatives of the great iron and steel industry. 

The official entry of iron and steel as a lead- 
ing factor of English politics has a peculiar 
interest for us in connection with the subject 
which we are discussing. Some of us still 
remember the gasp of surprise with which the 
world received the announcement that Cham- 
berlain had selected the Colonial Office as his par- 
ticular field of activity in the Government of 
which he was to be the leading factor. Until then 
the post of Colonial Secretary was considered a 
minor one in the English Cabinet. And the world 
looked on in astonishment as Chamberlain passed 
the Chancellorship of the Exchequeur — which he 
should have taken had he followed tradition — 
and the other great posts, until he reached the 
Colonial Secretaryship, almost at the bottom of 
the list. 

But the entry of Chamberlain into office meant 
not only the entry of a new industry into a leading 
position in English politics, it meant a radical 
change in the entire character of politics. 



The Economic Causes of the War 63 

It meant, indeed, the opening of a new era in the 
history of Capitalism — the era of "Colonial 
Policy" and "World Politics". Or, at least, 
England's entry into the New Phase. This great 
change was symbolized by the raising of the Colo- 
nial Secretaryship to a place of first importance 
in the English Cabinet. But it had more than 
symbolical significance. Chamberlain meant 
business. He did not take the Colonial Office 
because of a mere whim or for sentimental 
reasons. It was in order to give a new course to 
English colonial policy. Within a few years the 
full significance of the change became apparent: 
the Boer War was fought and the Boer Republics 
blotted out, repudiating not only England's former 
policy with reference to the Boer settlers in South 
Africa, but her entire colonial and foreign policy 
of more than a century. And, incidentally, 
classical political economy and the whole philo- 
sophy of Manchesterism. 

It is true that the triumph of the new principle, 
the triumph of Birmingham over Manchester, 
was by no means complete. The old order is 
fighting for its life, and the fight is still going on. 
But the indications are abundant that notwith- 
standing England's comparative backwardness — 



64 Socialism and War 

as evidenced by the fact that Chamberlain could 
not carry with him even his own party for the 
whole length of his colonial and tariff policy — 
the new order is making constant if not rapid 
gains. England is taking her place in the Im- 
perialistic procession. 

Modern Imperialism, as I have already 
indicated, is the politico-social expression of the 
economic fact that iron and steel have taken the 
place of textiles, as the leading industry of 
Capitalism. And imperialism means war. 
Textiles, therefore, mean peace; iron and steel — 
war. 

In order to see the reason why, we must hark 
back for a moment to Dr. Hourwich's criticism 
of the so-called "orthodox*' Socialists, which I 
quoted at the beginning of this lecture. You will 
remember his scoffing at the idea that Germany 
had to go to war in an effort to sell her goods — 
which is supposed to be the position of "orthodox" 
Socialists. 

This supposed orthodox-Socialist view was 
recently expressed by a representative of the 
Socialist Party of this country in a public lecture. 
This Socialist spokesman said, in substance, that 
we send missionaries to Africa in order to teach 



The Economic Causes of the War 65 

the poor, benighted heathen negroes to wear 
trousers and silk hats, and after our missionaries 
have succeeded in their task we go to war for the 
chance to sell the trousers and hats thus brought 
into fashion. 

In criticism of this position Dr. Hourwich says, 
that, whatever necessity there may be for the em- 
ployment of missionaries in order to create a 
market for trousers and silk hats, there is 
absolutely no necessity for the employment of 
military force in order to capture it. The market 
once there Germany had as good a chance to sell 
as England, even though England be "Mistress of 
the Seas", and even though the particular market 
be located in territory colored on the map with 
the color of the British Empire. English 
supremacy on the sea does not interfere with the 
shipment of cargoes from Bremen to Africa or 
any other quarter of the globe. And English over- 
lordship over any particular territory does not 
interfere with the freedom of the world to trade 
therein. 

This criticism* seems to be justified. In fact it 
is so. Or, rather, it was so. For it does not take 
account of the recent developments of the 
economics of Capitalism. It is about a generation 



66 Socialism and War 

behind time. It was applicable during the period 
of textiles — during the period when trousers and 
silk-hats, and other textiles, constituted the back- 
bone of industry and foreign trade — but it does 
not apply to our epoch. Dr. Hourwich is quite 
right in his assertion that we do not have to go 
to war to get markets — for textiles. And we 
didn't, so long as textiles were the ruling 
industry — an era which coincided with the period 
when England was practically in possession of the 
world market and maintained a policy of free- 
trade therein. 

But it is quite different now, when iron and 
steel products have taken the place of trousers 
and silk-hats. And here we must pause for a 
moment to consider the part played by foreign 
trade in the economy of a highly developed 
Capitalism. Incidentally we may, perhaps, get a 
glimpse of the causes which relegated textiles to 
the rear and pushed iron and steel to the front. 

The basis of all capitalist industrial develop- 
ment is the fact that the working class produces 
not only more than it consumes, but more than 
society as a whole consumes. It is this which 
permits the enormous accumulation of wealth 
which is the distinguishing characteristic of the 



The Economic Causes of the War 67 

capitalistic era. A capitalist society, therefore, 
always has a surplus-product on hand, which it 
must dispose of in order that it may "progress" ; 
that is, continue to accumulate wealth. It there- 
fore always depends on foreign markets for its 
healthy development. Of course, this "foreign" 
market need not be foreign in the political sense, 
but only in the economic — that is it must be of a 
lower order of capitalistic development. Such a 
market, in order to serve the purpose, must be an 
absolute absorbent, and not merely take goods 
in exchange for other goods of as high an 
industrial order. 

As capitalist industry began to develop in spots, 
and took a long period of time before even the 
foremost capitalist countries became completly, or 
even predominantly, industrialized, this "foreign" 
market could for quite some time be found at 
home. That is to say, the industrial centres of 
any given country could dispose of their surplus 
products to the agricultural districts of the same 
country. This could not be done, however, with- 
out "industrializing" these agricultural districts. 
The old-fashioned agricultural community with 
its natural economy forms only a poor market for 
the products of an industrial economy. It is only 



68 Socialism and War 

when this community emerges from its natural 
economy and starts on the road of "progress" to 
industrialism that it begins to count as a 
"customer". But once a community starts on the 
road of "progress" there is no way of stopping it. 
The districts which were once the customers of 
the industrial centre, absorbing its surplus- 
product, are soon its competitors, so that the 
nation as a whole produces a surplus-product 
which can only be disposed of in a foreign market, 
— ^this time "foreign" in the political sense. The 
foreign market can only be in a foreign country, 
but it has not lost its economic meaning — for the 
foreign country must also be on a lower plane of 
capitalistic development. And so we find the 
countries of a higher stage of capitalistic develop- 
ment disposing of their surplus-product to 
countries on a lower stage of that development. 

But that cannot last forever. For soon 
there are more countries producing a surplus than 
there are countries in a condition to absorb 
it. Most of the countries touched by the magic 
wand of capitalistic development soon produce a 
surplus-product of their own. On the other hand, 
those countries which have not been touched by 
that development are not in a condition to absorb 



The Economic Causes of the War 69 

the product of the other industrialism, — ^they have 
neither the taste for their consumption nor the 
means with which to buy them. 

It is doubtful whether a legion of missionaries 
could convert a sufficient number of Central 
African negroes to the fashion of wearing trousers 
to keep even a moderate trouser-factory in New 
York busy. But even if missionaries were 
exceptionally skilled and in good luck, our New 
York trouser-manufacturers would still be sans 
customers if they had to depend on the Central 
African trade, — not with the missionaries but with 
the negroes. For a customer in the commercial 
sense of the word is not merely a man who wants 
to buy something, but one who can also pay for 
what he wants ; and the poor African Negro has 
nothing with which to pay for the luxuries, the 
use of which the missionaries may teach him. 

The capitalist world as a whole finds itself 
compelled to create new markets — manufacture 
customers, as it were — by stimulating the develop- 
ment of undeveloped countries, "civilizing" them, 
hot-house fashion, by means of all sorts of "im- 
provements", such as railroads, canals, etc. This 
has a double effect: on the one hand it will ulti- 
mately create a new market by bringing a new 
country into the vortex of capitalistic develop- 



70 Socialism and War 

ment. But its more immediate effect is that the 
building operation itself creates a demand for the 
exportation of goods— steel and iron goods. 
Although incidentally it may also help the ex- 
portation of some textile goods. When a railroad 
is being built in Africa, at an expense of, say 100 
million dollars, it usually means the exportation 
from the domain of capitalistic production of 
probably 80 or 90 millions worth of steel and iron 
goods. The balance of the money is used for the 
hire of labor in Africa to do the work of actual 
building, and a portion of that money at least 
would then go to the negroes who might be induced 
to do some of the hardest work. These negroes 
would then be in a position to pay for their 
trousers and silk-hats, and the work of the 
missionaries in teaching them their wear would 
produce some tangible results. Hence the world- 
wide phenomenon of "the exportation of capital" 
which has accompanied the rise of iron and steel 
to the leading place in capitalistic economy. 

But this phenomenon of the exportation of 
capital in the form, principally, of iron and steel, 
from economically developed to economically un- 
developed countries, where it is invested in per- 
manent improvements, principally railroads, is 



The Economic Causes of the War 71 

only part of a wider phenomenon — ^that of the 
distribution of production within the domain 
of capitalism itself in such a manner that its 
more developed parts produce principally means 
of production, while its less developed portions 
produce means of consumption. This is due to the 
fact that when a country enters upon the career 
of capitalistic production it begins with the pro- 
duction of consumable goods, doing it usually with 
machinery purchased abroad. So that when the 
new-comer within the family of capitalist nations 
turns from a customer of its older capitalistic 
brethren into their competitor, it does not do so 
in all fields of production. On the contrary, it 
continues to remain their customer for a long time 
to come. Only it does not buy from them any 
more textiles and other consumable goods as it 
used to, but machinery and means of production 
generally. The competition of the new-comer 
in the production of consumable goods leads to a 
shifting of production in the older — industrially 
more developed — countries. These countries now 
produce, proportionally, more machinery and 
other artificial means of production and fewer 
consumable goods. Generally speaking, it may 
be said that the capitalist world as a whole puts 



72 Socialism and War 

its savings, its continued accumulations of wealth, 
into means of production, — iron and steel. It is 
therefore natural that the production of iron and 
steel should become increasingly more prominent 
in those countries where this saving process — 
the accumulation of wealth — is most rapid. 

It is this that has led to the supplanting of 
textiles by iron and steel as the leading industry 
of the most highly developed industrial countries ; 
and, therefore, of capitalism as a whole. 

Now, this change from textiles to iron and steel 
as the leading industry of the most highly 
developed capitalism, is the real cause of the 
change which we have noted in the character of 
capitalism from a peaceful to a warlike mood. It 
is this that has brought about the Imperialistic 
era in which we live. It is this that is the general 
cause of the present war. 

And the reason is simple. Iron and steel are 
not sold, and cannot be sold, in the same manner 
as trousers and silk-hats or any other similar 
goods. Of course we are not speaking of scissors 
and knives and such-like small wares. But of the 
real heavy iron and steel goods with which 
"permanent improvements" are made. 

The sale of textiles is, comparatively speaking, 



The Economic Causes of the War 73 

a very simple aflp air. If you want to sell trousers 
and hats to the natives of some primitive com- 
munity in Asia or Africa, and your missionaries 
have done their missionary work, all that it is 
necessary for you to do is to send your cargo of 
goods with an alert sales-manager in charge, and 
the job is done. If you can undersell your com- 
petitor, the market is yours. If you are a German 
you need worry very little about the English 
flag that may happen to be flying, actually or 
figuratively, over the community in question. 

But the situation is quite different if you want 
to sell these same natives some of your loco- 
motives, cars, rails and other iron and steel goods 
that go into the building and equipping of a rail- 
road. You cannot just ship a cargo of this kind 
of goods in charge of a sales-manager and sell 
them to the natives. The only way to do that is 
to build the railroad yourself. And here the 
question of the flag becomes a matter of the ut- 
most importance. While a German, for instance, 
can sell trousers and hats in British South Africa 
as freely as he could in German South-West 
Africa, or in the Fatherland itself, he would find 
insurmountable difficulties in his way if he were 
to try to build a railroad through any of the 



74 Socialism and War 

British dominions. The free-trade policy which 
England has so far maintained in all its colonies 
as to textiles does not apply to iron and steel. 
Not only does England reserve to her own capital- 
ists the opportunities of building railroads 
throughout her vast colonial dominions, but she is 
very jealous of other nations in the matter of 
building railroads even through so-called 
"independent" countries, if they happen to be- 
long to the "backward" class — such, for 
instance, as Turkey, Persia, or China. Of course, 
the other countries, the countries that erect tariff 
walls even against foreign textiles, build regular 
fortifications to protect their "nationals" against 
competition in iron and steel. When we come to 
discuss the special causes that led to the present 
war, I shall have occasion to illustrate what I have 
here put before you in abstract terms by citing 
concrete examples from the actual practice of 
what has come to be called World-Politics. But 
right here I must explain before closing the 
present lecture, at least in a general way, why 
England, who still maintains her free-trade 
policy as to textiles and similar goods, takes a 
different attitude when it comes to selling iron 
and steel by means of railroad building in "back- 
ward" countries. 



The Economic Causes of the War 75 

The explanation lies in the fact that the method 
of "selling" and receiving payment for the iron 
and steel used in the process of "civilizing" back- 
ward countries has certain peculiarities which 
exclude free competition. Supposing a set of 
enterprising people have conceived the idea of sell- 
ing some iron and steel to the natives of Africa 
by building a railroad, say, from the Cape to 
Cairo, in accordance with the scheme of that 
great Empire Builder, Cecil Rhodes. How, do 
you imagine, would they proceed? Just go ahead 
and ship rails, cars, locomotives, and money to 
Africa, and build? By no means. Such a rail- 
road might be a wonderful civilizing agency; but 
it is a very poor investment from the ordinary 
commercial point of view. The ordinary mer- 
chant, whether he sells textiles or steel, wants pay 
for his wares, and the ordinary investor wants 
dividends on his investment. In order, therefore, 
that the building of a railroad may be "practi- 
cable" from the business point of view, it must 
be a dividend-paying proposition. But that is 
exactly what your Cape to Cairo railroad couldn't 
be, what no railroad built through these "back- 
ward" countries teeming with beautiful railroad 
projects could be. That is, not if it were to be 



76 Socialism and War 

built in the ordinary way, by ordinary private 
individuals, on their own hook and responsibility. 
That's why "civilizing" railroads are not built 
in that way. The main part of building such a 
railway is not the work of building the railroad 
itself, but that of getting the "concession." Now 
there are some people who imagine that a "con- 
cession" is a sort of permit to build a railway. 
As a matter of fact it is an agreement for the 
mode of payment for the iron and steel and other 
accessories which go into the building of the rail- 
way, other than from the colUection of fares for 
the transportation of passengers or goods, which 
could not possibly be sufficient for the purpose. 

The first thing, therefore, that our set of enter- 
prising gentlemen who wanted to build the Cape 
to Cairo Railroad, or engage in some other civil- 
izing enterprise of that nature, would do, would 
be to apply for a "concession." The application, 
directed to the ruling power of the country to be 
civilized by the enterprise, would state in sub- 
stance, that the applicants have conceived the 
great idea of building the railroad; that such a 
railroad would result in incalculable benefits to 
the country through which it is intended to run; 
that it would transform the country from a 



The Economic Causes of the War 77 

wilderness into a paradise, and raise its population 
from poverty to affluence; but that before all of 
these beautiful things ;would happen, and the 
railroad be in a position to pay a dividend from its 
own earnings as a carrier, or even pay running- 
expenses perhaps, the applicants, if left to them- 
selves, would go bankrupt and the enterprise go 
to smash. As good and sensible business-men the 
applicants could not, therefore, even dream of 
carrying out their magnificent projects unless 
they were secured against loss and guaranteed a 
fair profit on their investment. 

Now, there are two or three ways in which the 
building of a railroad which cannot pay expenses 
in the ordinary business way, may become a very 
well-paying business to the "concessionaires". 
They may either receive a direct money-subsidy 
from the government through whose domain the 
railroad is to run; they may be given grants of 
large tracts of land, particularly valuable 
mineral lands, the exploitation of which would 
bring an immediate return ; or they may be given 
monopolistic rights to the trade of the country, 
or at least some branches of the same. Most con- 
cessions contain some or all of these features — 
are, in fact, mortgages on the future of the 



78 Socialism and War 

country, and usually very onerous mortgages. 
And here comes the real difficulty of this mode 
of selling iron and steel. Some of these benighted 
heathen governments are very slow in appreciat- 
ing the beauties of these railroad projects; some 
of them positively object to being railroaded into 
the pale of civilization, or at least dislike to pay 
the fare for the trip. Sometimes their reluctance 
in giving concessions that would pay is so great 
that they cannot be obtained except at the point 
of the bayonet ; and no concession is ever granted 
except through the inteference of the "home" 
government, at least by the use of moral suasion. 
And where several sets of "concessionaires"! 
belonging to different nations, ask for the same 
concession, that set will get it whose "home" 
government can, and is ready to, exercise the 
greatest pressure. 

That no great power under the circumstances 
will give concessions for railroad building to 
foreigners is self-evident. England may be willing 
enough to let German merchants sell hats and 
trousers to the natives of her colonies on terms 
of equality with her own citizens, trusting that in 
a field of free competition her citizens will at 
least have an equal chance. But she certainly 



The Economic Causes of the War 79 

cannot be expected to mortgage the future of her 
colonies to German capitalists in a monopolistic 
enterprise. If her colonies are to be exploited in 
this fashion, her own capitalists are there for the 
purpose. They, too, have considerable steel on 
hand, and are very anxious to dispose of it in 
some profitable way. Each great power, there- 
fore, tries to keep her colonies as a special reser- 
vation for her own capitalists wherein they may 
dispose of their surplus-products, invest thevr 
accumulations of wealth, — which, as we have seen, 
now consists of iron and steel. 

But this is not all. The colonies which these 
great steel-producing nations possess may not be 
sufficient for the purpose of absorbing all of their 
surplus-product; or the prospect of good returns 
from an investment in these colonies may 
not be as good as that to be found elsewhere. 
Besides, a prudent business-man should have his 
eye open to the future. What may be sufficient 
for present purposes, may be inadequate at some 
future time. A reserve must therefore be created. 
Our Governments from Steel must, therefore, do 
what Chamberlain, following Lord Roseberry, so 
felicitously called "pegging out claims for 
posterity". Or, at least, the unappropriated field 



80 Socialism and War 

must be kept open and unappropriated by others 
until we shall be ready and able to assert our 
claims thereto. In a word: the disposal of the 
surplus-product of the modern industrial nations 
has ceased to be a matter of trade carried on by 
the individual, and has become a matter of armed 
force, actual or potential, used by large groups, 
called Nations. Hence the phenomenon which we 
call Modern Imperialism. 



III. 

THE IDEOLOGIC CAUSES OF 
THE WAR. 

It has often been charged that the Socialists — 
or at least those old offenders, the "orthodox" 
Socialists — see nothing in history but the play 
of "blind economic forces", leaving no room for 
any spiritual or ideal forces or motives. And since 
the outbreak of the present war the charge has 
been made in our own press that in discussing this 
war the "orthodox" Socialists see only low 
material forces and fail to recognize the higher 
ideal motives, etc. The very title of this lecture 
is a sufficient refutation of the charge of the 
failure to recognize any so-called ideal motives 
for or causes of this war. But I must warn you 
against a possible misunderstanding: please do 
not imagine that I believe the present war to have 
had a double set of causes, one economic and one 
ideologic. On the contrary, I believe that at bot- 



82 Socialism and War 

torn there is only one set of causes : the economic 
changes which I have endeavored to describe and 
explain in my last lecture. 

But these economic forces do not work either 
automatically or mechanically. They work 
through the medium of human beings, — and the 
entire complex machinery of the human organism, 
both individual and social, comes into play. The 
Good Book says that Man does not live by bread 
alone. In the course of his eventful history on 
this planet he has developed a taste for certain 
delicacies, certain faculties besides those of digest- 
ing his food, and certain wants besides those of 
filling his stomach or his pocket. In a word, he 
has certain mental and spiritual faculties and 
wants alongside of the more material ones. This 
has led the great majority of people to the belief 
in the dual character of human nature, dividing 
it into a "higher" or spiritual part, and a "lower" 
or material one, into a "body" and a "souFMIaving 
thus split up the human entity into two, the phi- 
losophers began to quarrel as to which rules 
which: the "materialists" claimed that tHe 
"lower" element of human nature rules the higher 
one, the body is supreme over the soul ; while the 
"idealists" claimed that the soul always manages 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 83 

to get on top, and that it is therefore the power 
that "makes history". Then came the com- 
promisers, who are not wanting anywhere, and 
tried to compromise by putting the two halves of 
human nature on terms of equality side by side, 
sometimes helping each other and sometimes 
counteracting one another in the business of shap- 
ing human conduct and making history. It is the 
belief that "orthodox" Socialists are "material- 
ists" in the above sense, that has brought upon 
them the reproaches of some "idealists" or 
eclectics for the alleged neglect of "ideal" causes 
or motives in appraising historical events 
generally and the present war in particular. 

Now, I am neither an "idealist" nor a "material- 
ist" in the above sense. Nor yet an eclectic. I 
have no occasion to belong to any of the said de- 
nominations, because I do not start out by splitting 
up human nature and dividing it into upper and 
lower regions. I take it as one harmonious whole, 
notwithstanding its multifarious complexity of 
functions and wants. The great harmonizer of 
human nature is a certain faculty with which man 
is endowed, which the great German poet Schiller 
described as the capacity "of transforming the 
work of necessity into a work of his free choice 
and of raising the physical necessity into a moral 



84 Socialism and War 

one," This faculty permits the individual to see 
his material needs in the glamour of spiritual and 
moral ones. 

To this should be added another thing, which 
the great German poet may have overlooked. And 
that is the fact that the individual neither creates 
his own world, nor does he dwell there alone ; both 
his physical (material) as well as his moral 
(spiritual) necessities are fashioned for him by 
the society in which he lives. And it is this so- 
ciety, as a whole, which possesses that remarkable 
faculty of which Schiller speaks, of "raising the 
physical necessity into a moral one". And when 
society has thus raised its physical necessities 
into moral ones, the seeming contradiction be- 
tween the rule of the material forces in history 
which is plain to any discerning eye and the high 
motives and lofty ideals which, it is equally plain, 
have actuated so many of the great actors in the 
important historical dramas — a contradiction 
which has baffled so many historians — entirely 
disappears. For society's physical necessity has 
become the individual's moral necessity, for which 
he is ready to sacrifice his individual physical 
necessities and comforts in a transport of pure 
idealism. 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 85 

In my last lecture I endeavored to explain the 
present war from the point of view of society's 
physical necessities. In the present lecture I shall 
show you how this material necessity had been 
raised into a moral one, and attempt to explain 
this war from the point of view of the individual's 
moral necessities. 

The "moral" or "spiritual" conceptions, as 
distinguished from material or economic ones, 
used in the discussions of this war, are those of 
nationalism, racial affinity, and culture. We shall 
do well, therefore, to begin our discourse with a 
historical examination of the development of the 
conceptions or ideas of Nation, Race, and 
Culture. 

The conception of the Nation, in our sense of 
the word, is of comparatively modern origin. 
During the Middle Ages there was no such thing 
in Christian Europe. When order emerged in 
Europe from the chaos of the great migrations, by 
the establishment of the feudal system, European 
society was, on the one hand, broken up into in- 
numerable small fragments, each leading a 
separate existence; and, on the other, these in- 
numerable fragments of humanity formed one 
common group, referred to collectively as 
Christendom. 



86 Socialism and War 

The inhabitants of the different parts of the 
continent may have had some characteristics 
common only to the dwellers within a certain 
geographical area, which distinguished them from 
those making their home in a different part of the 
continent. But those characteristics were not 
strong enough to unite the dwellers of any large 
geographical area into what we would call a 
Nation, or to mark them as quite alien to those 
living elsewhere. The masses of the lower strata 
of the population were broken up locally into 
small groups, each forming a separate political 
entity, and each having a language, and often a 
religion, of its own. On the other hand, the upper 
crust, the carriers of whatever intellectual life 
there was then in Europe, formed one nation, with 
a common culture, — they had one religion, one 
language, and one literature. This unity of the 
whole of Christendom in everything that was not 
merely a local custom, was symbolized by the Pope 
and the Emperor, — one representing the spiritual 
and the other the political unity of all Christian 
Europe. 

Towards the close of the Middle Ages, with 
the beginning of the development of our modern 
commercial and industrial era — ^the breaking 
up of the old feudal order and the substitution 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 87 

therefor of what has come to be known as the 
bourgeois or capitalist economic system — this 
social and political aspect of Europe began to 
change. On the one hand the local differences 
began to disappear, making great bodies of people 
spread over large areas of land more akin to each 
other in manners, customs, religious observances, 
language, and modes of thought. On the other 
hand, the spiritual and political unity of the upper 
crust of Christendom began to break up. Capital- 
ism needed larger economic units for its develop- 
ment. The small groups therefore began to 
coalesce and amalgamate into larger units which 
would permit the larger economic life which is the 
characteristic of the new era. But this very 
process of coalescence and centralization into 
larger economic units had as a necessary corollary 
a process of separation and division, separating 
and dividing the larger groups, when formed, 
from each other. The same process that made 
people within a certain large territory more akin 
to each other, of necessity made them more dif- 
ferent and distinct from people outside this terri- 
tory and inhabiting some other large district, 
whose dwellers were acquiring a homogeneous 
character of their own. 
This double process of coalescence and division 



88 Socialism and War 

usually found its limits and lines of demarcation — 
marking off the territories within which the pro- 
cess of coalescence and between which the process 
of separation should proceed — in some well-de- 
fined geographical characteristics of the European 
continent. The sea and the great mountain-ranges 
usually marked the boundaries of the several 
divisions into which Europe was to break up. The 
dwellers within these boundaries were separated 
from the rest of Europe and started on the road 
towards the formation of one political, economic, 
social, and linguistic group — ^towards the forma- 
tion of the Modern Nation. 

Thus arose the Modern European nations, each 
with its own language and separate and distinct 
social, political, and economic life: England, 
France, Spain, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, 
Italy and Germany. 

With the breaking up of the homogeneity of 
Europe and the formation of separate nations, 
each constituting a separate political state, there 
began to develop separate and distinct national 
cultures in place of the common European culture 
which prevailed during the Middle Ages. The 
first great manifestation of this new development 
was the Reformation. Contrary to the assurances 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 89 

of our school histories and similar sources of in- 
formation, the Reformation was least of all a 
religious movement. In so far as it did not directly 
aim at economic results, it was essentially a poli- 
tical movement resulting from economic con- 
ditions. 

On its formal side — that is in the separation 
of the "reformed" churches from the Church of 
Rome, and the denial of the supremacy of the 
Roman Pontiff — the reformation was merely a 
solemn registering of the fact that Europe had 
broken up into separate nations. That each of 
these nations, having a separate economic life, 
must also constitute separate political, spiritual, 
and intellectual entities. That henceforth there 
would be no common church and no common 
language, as well as no common empire. The 
Roman Emperor, the Roman Pope, and the Latin 
Bible had all become anachronisms, survivals of a 
common nation-less Europe, and must all go. 
Henceforth each Nation was to have its own in- 
dependent political head paying no allegiance to 
any Emperor; its own independent church pay- 
ing no tribute and recognizing no soverign outside 
of its own national jurisdiction; and its own 
literature, with the vernacular Bible as a symbol 
of its freedom from Latin tutelage. 



90 Socialism and War 

The independence of national development 
secured in the Reformation, while registering the 
act of separation, was itself a means of furthering 
it, and the development of Europe has continued 
along national lines during the entire formative 
period of Capitalism. 

This formative period of Capitalism, the period 
when the different sections into which Europe 
broke up at the close of the Middle Ages were 
developing their own independent economic 
existence along capitalist-industrial lines, is the 
first of the two warlike periods of Capitalism of 
which I spoke in my last lecture. The wars of this 
period were conducted, principally, for what 
might be called natural territorial limits; that is 
to say, for the establishment of political units 
which would be economically self-sufficient and 
independent. 

For this purpose it was necessary that the 
political unit — the "country" — should be of suf- 
ficient size to give the development of the econo- 
mic forces elbow-room. And since freedom of 
intercourse is one of the essentials of economic 
development along capitalistic lines, the larger the 
area comprised within a given political unit the 
better. There was, therefore, a general striving 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 91 

to bring within the domain of one political unit 
everything that could be easily communicated 
with, — the sea and mountain ranges being con- 
sidered natural boundaries. At the same time it 
was necessary to so arrange the boundaries of the 
political unit as to contain "within its own four 
corners" the raw materials for its industries and 
the other accessories of production. And as 
natural wealth in raw materials and other 
accessories of production is not evenly distributed 
on the surface of our globe, it was sometimes 
found necessary to break through the so-called 
natural boundaries in order to make the political 
unit self-sufficient economically. As great 
mountain ranges formed impassable barriers, the 
only way of supplyng the deficiency of a country 
in natural wealth would be to establish over-sea 
colonies in regions rich in the particular article in 
which the home country was deficient. This could, 
of course, be done only when a country was 
bounded on the sea at least at some point. 

At the same time the sea was indispensible as 
a means of intercourse with the outside world, 
the world which was the market for the products 
of the countries' soil and manufactories. Hence 
the struggle of inland countries in this formative 



92 Socialism and War 

stage of Capitalism for the extension of their 
boundaries almost invariably assumes the form 
of a march to the sea. 

Politically, that is, internally, this formative 
period of Capitalism is characterized by the con- 
solidation and centralization of governmental 
power, — by the growth of absolutist monarchical 
institutions. In this connection it may be well to 
point out that the opinion so prevalent in our 
intellectual circles, and so often expressed in print 
since the outbreak of the present war, that 
monarchy is a remnant of feudalism, is anjrthing 
but intelligent. As a matter of fact, feudalism 
is absolutely guiltless of the offense of establishing 
the institution of absolute monarchy. As far as 
Modern Europe at least is concerned that insti- 
tution is due entirely to the political activities of 
the bourgeoisie. During the formative period of 
Capitalism of which I have just spoken, the rising 
industrial bourgeoisie created the institution of 
absolute monarchy as a means, on the one hand, 
of abolishing feudal restrictions upon trade and 
industry, and, on the other, of consolidating large 
areas into one political and economic unit and of 
successfully marching to the sea. 

But feudalism overthrown and Capitalism 
firmly established—the National territory self- 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 93 

sufficient, industrially, and the sea freely and 
easily accessible — ^the bourgeoisie becomes peace- 
ful and settles down to develop its home indus- 
tries, — manufacturing textiles. 

Ideologically the reign of textiles is character- 
ized by what might be called, collectively, 
"liberal ideas". "Liberalism", as a system or 
circle of ideas means: politically, — republicanism 
and democracy; in the domain of international 
relations, — the "open door" and peaceful cos- 
mopolitanism ; in philosophy, — -classical political 
economy and utilitarianism. Culture and civil- 
ization — which have been growing nationalistic 
since the break-up of the European community of 
the Middle Ages, the disappearance of the 
universal Latin literature, and the creation of 
separate national churches and literatures, reflect- 
ing the national life and national struggles — again 
become the common heritage of humanity. Only, 
the concept of humanity now becomes much 
broader than during the Middle Ages, when it 
was practically limited to Christendom. 
"Humanity" now means what the term implies — 
the entire human race; and culture and civil- 
ization not only lose their narrow nationalistic 
character, but they become truly universal, 



94 Socialism and War 

making no distinctions on account of race, re- 
ligion, or color. 

The three branches or divisions of the "liberal" 
view of life which I have indicated — its ideas of 
political institutions, international relations, and 
the laws governing human relations generally — 
are closely knit together and form one organic 
whole. The demand of the representatives of the 
liberal bourgeoisie for a republican form of gov- 
ernment and democratic political institutions 
generally, on the one hand, and the peaceful cos- 
mopolitanism of their international policy, on the 
other, were not mere accidents of "personal 
union", (to borrow a term from European public 
law), but two phases of the same cast of ideas. 
And both were only the logical consequence of 
their view of the laws which governed the basic 
relation of man to man, — the relation of produc- 
ing and consuming social wealth. 

The general view of the world, developed during 
the classic age of Capitalism, under the aegis of 
textiles, may be summarized as follows: 

The economic activities of man are subject to 
certain natural and immutable laws, which shape 
the conduct of the individual and his relations 
to his fellow-men in society. These laws dictate 
to the individual the best — ^most profitable — 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 95 

course for him to follow in his economic activities, 
and the individual follows them, therefore, freely 
and eagerly in his natural desire to get all he can 
out of this world for himself. But this world of 
ours, instead of being a "vale of tears", a place 
of misery and suffering, as we had been told by 
some ascetic moralizers, is in reality so happily 
arranged and organized that when every in- 
dividual follows his own selfish bent of always 
looking out for himself, there results a perfectly 
harmonious whole which redounds to the benefit 
and prosperity of society at large and every 
individual member thereof. The selfishness and 
acquisitiveness of individuals, instead of clashing 
with the interests of their fellow-members in 
society, are really of great benefit to them. 

There is only one pre-requisite to this happy 
result ; and that is, that the individuals should be 
enlightened enough to understand their own real 
and permanent interests, so that they may not act 
from a mistaken notion as to what that interest 
really is and thereby injure themselves as well as 
their fellow-men. Practically all of the misery 
which the human race suffered in the past, and to 
which a large portion of it is still subject, is due, 
on the one hand, to such mistaken notions by in- 
dividuals as to what their own true interests re- 



96 Socialism and War 

quire, leading them to act in a manner injurious 
to themselves and to others, and, on the other 
hand, to a failure to understand the true character 
of the natural laws governing the economic 
relations of men, resulting in attempts to interfere 
with their own free play by man-made laws. This 
last circumstance is the most important. For 
when left to himself man will soon come to under- 
stand his own true interests ; and the harm result- 
ing from individual mistakes as to what is good 
for one's self is comparatively small and neg- 
ligible. The real source of human misery is, 
therefore, the attempt by organized society to 
interfere with the free play of the natural laws 
of economics, due to ignorance of their true 
character. 

The true remedy, therefore, for all human ills, 
is to let well-enough alone ; to permit the beautiful 
symphony of our economic world to be played by 
the instruments naturally attuned thereto, un- 
disturbed by any interference from the outside. 
And the only condition for the Millennium is 
enlightenment sufficient to prevent such inter- 
ference. The economic laws of nature are not 
only immutable, but omnipresent and all-per- 
vasive. They are independent of time and space. 
In their presence all human beings are equal, — 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 97 

all being subject to their power and influence, 
without distinction as to race, religion, or color. 
Potentially all human beings are alike ; for all are 
not merely subject to the same economic laws, but 
all have the fundamental faculty of acting under 
the influence of these laws in a manner not only 
beneficial to themselves but to humanity at large. 
They are all properly attuned by nature to par- 
ticipate in the economic symphony, which is 
merely another name for civilization. Civilization 
is our name for the material conditions of well- 
being brought about by the free play of the 
economic laws of nature, taken together with the 
enlightenment which leads to the abolition of all 
artificial restrictions upon these laws, thus giving 
them free scope. This civilization is, therefore, 
the common heritage of mankind; being nothing 
more than the natural condition of mankind, un- 
hampered by any artificially created barriers to 
its natural progress. Fundamentally, all men are 
equal; all individuals within each nation, and all 
nations within the human species. 

Of course, there are nations and races at 
different stages of civilization. So there are in- 
dividuals within each civilized nation at different 
stages of enlightenment. But these differences 



98 Socialism and War 

are merely of degree, not of kind. It is simply a 
question of the awakening of the latent faculties 
inborn in humanity, or the degree of such 
awakening. Not only are the races which we 
rank lowest in the scale of civilization naturally 
capable of attaining the highest pinnacles of this 
civilization ; but the labor of doing so would not be 
so very arduous, as they are in the fortunate 
position of not being hampered by a large accu- 
mulation of historical rubbish of a semi-civil- 
ization, consisting mainly of artificially created 
barriers to the free play of economic laws, which 
must be swept away before true civilization is 
attained. 

The "politics" of this view of the world of 
human interests are simple. At "home" — in the 
internal management of the nation — the govern- 
ment should be republican in form and democratic 
in substance. But above all, have as little of it as 
possible. Since Nature has been good enough to 
provide a set of laws for the government of the hu- 
man race which work so well, the best thing that 
society can do is to let nature put in the good work 
of her laws, and permit the individual to work out 
his own salvation by obeying nature's directions. 
The only thing man can do in this connection is 
to reinforce nature's commands by punishing 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 99 

those who foolishly break her laws. In short, 
government has only police duties to perform, 
watching against any infractions of nature's code 
of laws. Of course, it would be a good thing if 
organized society could help nature along by 
providing means of enlightening the hitherto un- 
enlightened as to the meaning of her laws — 
education. But even enlightenment should not be 
forced upon the unwilling by compulsory means. 
Nature has herself provided such magnificent in- 
centives and rewards for enlightenment, and the 
dangers from artificial laws and compulsions of 
any kind are so great, that it is advisable 
to rather take a chance on a possible small dose of 
ignorance than on compulsory education. 

And the same policy applies to international 
relations. Nations, like individuals, should enjoy 
equality in the "family of nations". And the only 
thing essential in their intercourse is freedom 
from artificial barriers. In a world of free trade 
each nation will be able to work out its own 
destiny; and while acting economically from 
purely utilitarian motives, will contribute to the 
general welfare of humanity. This equality of 
treatment should be accorded not only the so- 
called civilized nations, but also those on a lower 
plane of development. And while it may be advis- 



100 Socialism and War 

able to lend a backward nation a helping hand, 
leading her on the road to a higher civilization by- 
according her means of education and enlighten- 
ment, this should not be done by forcible means. 
The interests of civilization should be left to the 
free action of economic laws in a world of free 
intercourse between nations living on terms of 
equality. 

The "liberal" view of the world, which I have 
just sketched, with its democratic-cosmopolitan 
politics, was the ideologic expression of the 
economic practice of manufacturing and selling 
textiles. And it prevailed as long as its economic 
basis was secure. With the passing of textiles 
passed also Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, 
Herbert Spencer, — who but yesterday were the 
great pillars upon which rested the temple of 
bourgeois ideology. New times require new Gods, 
— and new priests to minister to them. Our Iron 
Age has its own God, — Moloch, the God of Iron 
and Steel. And Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, 
and Herbert Spencer were superceded by a new 
set of priests and prophets, who serve the new 
God after a new fashion and preach to the faith- 
ful a new creed. 

The new creed — the creed of Imperialism — 
bears to the new practice, the practice of selling 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 101 

iron and steel through military and diplomatic 
"agents", the same relation that the old, "liberaF' 
creed bore to the old practice of selling textiles 
peacefully through ordinary travelling salesmen 
by under-bidding your competitor. It is the raising 
of the physical necessity of selling iron and steel 
into a moral one. That does not mean that the 
moral pretensions of the new creed are necessarily 
hypocritical. On the contrary, it may be taken 
for granted that individually and psychologically 
considered the followers of this creed often act 
from as "lofty" and "ideal" motives as their pre- 
decessors of the "liberal" school, or as any high- 
minded "idealist" of whom we have any record. 
We are simply witnessing the transformation of 
social necessity into individual morality. 

I shall therefore endeavor to give you a 
description and exposition of this new creed as 
I see it, without any attempt at passing any moral 
judgment upon it, but simply giving you my 
explanation for its existence. I must say a word 
of warning however in this connection : The creed 
being a new one, its votaries have not yet had the 
time to systematize it. Its gospels have not yet 
all been written, and those that have been written 
have not yet all been collected and brought into 
proper relation to one another. Its Bible is still 



102 Socialism and War 

fragmentary. What I shall present to you here 
is, therefore, only my own systematization and 
elucidation of this creed as I gather it from the 
fragmentary writings and scattered remains of 
its apostles that have come under my observation. 
Another thing: It must not be assumed that this 
creed suddenly emerged from the brain of an 
Imperialist Apostle fully panoplied, like Minerva 
from Jove's forehead. Nor that all those whom 
we may properly class as Imperialists have care- 
fully thought out all the positions, implications, 
and logical consequences of the different articles 
of this creed. The truth is that the Imperialist 
Creed is still in the making, and its different ar- 
ticles have not yet been settled by any Holy 
Imperialist Synod. But its essential character- 
istics and general tendency have become 
sufficiently marked to permit of fairly accurate 
description. 

Now, the cardinal point of the Imperialist 
philosophy, the basic position upon which every- 
thing else depends, is the denial of the liberal idea 
of natural economic laws operating, automatically, 
upon all human beings. Or, viewing the matter 
from a different angle, it denies the essential 
equality of the different races of the human spe- 
cies. Not merely their equality of present condi- 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 103 

tion, but the possibility of their common develop- 
ment along certain lines of culture and civilization. 
That is to say, the Imperialist denies that all the 
races of humanity are endowed with the same 
capacity for development, the capacity for develop- 
ing the same civilization under the same circum- 
stances. According to this philosophy, the Creator, 
in making the human species, created it in 
different molds which we term races, and endowed 
these races differently, setting before them 
separate goals and outlining for them different 
courses of development. And these endowments, 
goals, and courses, are not merely different, but 
of unequal value. Some races are, therefore, 
superior to others. Or rather, there is one 
"superior" and a number of "inferior" races. 
The superior race was destined to rule the world, 
and therefore cast in heroic mold and endowed 
with kingly or aristocratic characteristics; while 
the other, the inferior races, were created after 
a different pattern, of inferior clay, and endowed 
with common plebeian characteristics, such as 
befit races destined forever to remain subject and 
subordinate in the scheme of things to the rule 
and tutelage of the superior race. The obvious 
mark of distinction between the races is the color 



104 Socialism and War 

of the skin : the white race was intended by the 
Creator not only to rule the world generally, but 
to lord it over its brethren of a darker hue. 

The implications of this theory of creation are 
obvious. The "inferior races", which means the 
generality of mankind outside the few hundred 
millions of the white race, have practically no 
rights which we need respect. They have no right 
to independence, because they were meant by 
their Creator to be si^6;ecf-races, and bow to our 
will. They have no right to be permitted to 
work out their own destiny, because their destiny 
is given in the color of their skin — ^the destiny of 
slavery and subjection — and they could not pos- 
sibly attain any other destiny no matter how 
much freedom we gave them. Furthermore, we 
have no right to give the inferior races their 
freedom, — ^that is, leave them alone to work out 
their own salvation. The ruler ship of the earth 
and the inhabitants thereof given to the White 
Race by God Almighty is not a mere privilege 
which it may exercise or discard at pleasure, but 
a duty which it cannot shirk. The White Race 
can no more voluntarily renounce its right to rule, 
than the "inferior" races can escape their destiny 
to be ruled. It must — 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 105 

"Take up the White Man's burden — 
And reap his old reward: 
The blame of those ye better, 
The hate of those ye guard — 
The cry of hosts ye humour 
(Oh, slowly!) toward the light: — 
Why brought ye us from bondage. 
Our loved Egyptian night?" 

This story, with variations, is told us over and 
over again; not only in song but in ponderous 
volumes of a highly respectable, scientific appear- 
ance, and with all the outward apparatus of 
great learning. And usually the variations are 
considerably to the disadvantage of the "inferior 
races". The poet of Imperialism at least holds 
out the hope that the "inferior races" may turn 
"slowly toward the light", and places upon the 
White Man a sort of duty of ultimately leading 
them "from bondage". Not so the scholars of 
Imperialism and its statesmen: to them the des- 
tiny of the "inferior races" holds no ray of hope ; 
they are mere beasts of burden, to do the drudgery 
in working out the White Man's "higher destiny", 
and the only duty of the White Man towards them 
is to treat them as should a good master. 

But such a theory cannot stop just there. In 



106 Socialism and War 

the form in which we have just presented it — 
making one grand distinction between the White 
Race and the rest of the human species — ^this 
theory is neither logical nor sufficient for the 
purpose of "raising into a moral necessity" the 
"physical" necessities of the iron andl steel bus- 
iness. 

There is no logical reason why the human 
species should be divided into two divisions — 
white and non-white — and the dividing process 
then stopping. Why should the great divisions 
not be subdivided further? There is absolutely 
nothing in the color of the skin which should 
make it the only mark of distinction: the color 
of the eyes or of the hair, and many other things 
might serve such a purpose just as well. Besides, 
there might be marks of distinction of quite a dif- 
ferent order — spiritual, instead of merely phys- 
ical. Particularly, within the aristocratic White 
Race itself, singled out by the Creator to lord it 
spiritually over the rest of mankind. 

And the practice of Imperialism proves that 
there must be such further distinctions. The 
White Man's burden is, of course, a thankless 
job — as Kipling assures us. And yet we find the 
different branches of the White Race, called na- 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 107 

tions, vying with each other in their enthusiasm 
for a chance to carry it. And not only that, 
but they are actually ready to jump at each 
other's throats and slaughter each other in their 
efforts to monopolize as much of this "bur- 
den" as possible. The grand division into white- 
superior and non-white-inferipr races supplies 
the justification of slaughtering "inferior" human 
beings of the non-white races in the process of 
carrying out the pre-ordained scheme of giving 
the White Man the rulership of the world; but it 
fails to supply a justification for the slaughter of 
fellow-white-men, all of whom have a common in- 
terest as against the "inferior races", but no ap- 
parent divergent interests among themselves. 

And, as Goethe said long ago, "am Anfang war 
die Tat,"— "the Practice is the Thing." So the 
theory received a further extension and elabora- 
tion which made it at once more logical and more 
serviceable. 

In its fully developed form, the philosophy or 
creed of Imperialism does not lay any particular 
stress on the sharp division between the White 
and the other races of the earlier days of this 
theory, but rather emphasizes the distinctions 
between the different nations of the same race. 



108 Socialism and War 

particularly the White race. And although the 
general terminology, particularly the word "race", 
is still used, the meaning given to the terms is 
quite different. Instead of one "superior" White 
race, there are now many White "races" — ^the 
w^ord "race" being now practically synonymous 
with "nation" — and the distinctions between the 
subdivisions of the White race are as deep-seated 
and all-important as those between the White race 
as a whole and the colored or "inferior" races. The 
term "inferior" itself has now lost its original, 
somewhat technical meaning, of non-white, and 
assumed its etymological meaning. Every race 
is "inferior" to The Race. The other White races 
may not be quite as inferior as the colored races, 
but this is a comparatively unimportant detail in 
the scheme of Creation and the course of History. 
The all-important fact is that the Creator in his 
wisdom has singled out one particular race, the 
Race par excellence, and has set it upon a course 
of development whose particular object and 
destined mission it is to serve as an embodiment 
of the particular virtues and characteristics which 
the Creator intended to finally prevail in the 
world. None of the other races or nations, whether 
white or colored, have any of these special charac- 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 109 

teristics or possess any of these particular 
virtues. And while there may be degrees of 
inferiority, and some other white races may 
possess virtues and characteristics of their own 
which make them in a way superior when com- 
pared with other, more inferior races ; all are just 
"inferior" and on a common plane when compared 
to the one Chosen People, whose mission and des- 
tiny it is to be the carrier of The Virtues. 

The logical corollary to this theory of created 
races, is the negation of a common human civil- 
ization. Not only is civilization not common to 
all humanity in the sense that not all the branches 
of the human species have attained, or can ever 
attain, to the same level of civilization ; but in the 
more important sense that there are such funda- 
mental differences between the "civilizations" of 
the different races and nations which have 
achieved the same — or what has hitherto been 
considered the same — level of civilization, as to 
make these "civilizations" essentially foreign to 
each other. The differences being not of degree, 
but of kind ; so that one race or nation can never 
achieve the civilization of another race or nation. 
At least, not to the extent of becoming an active 
carrier or propagator thereof; although it may 



110 Socialism and War 

submit thereto and in some passive way acquire 
its virtues at least sufficiently to enjoy its benefits. 
In order to emphasize this point and in a 
measure at least explain its mysteries, a new term 
has been coined; or, rather, a new meaning has 
been given to the old term "culture", and a new 
distinction drawn between it and the term "civil- 
ization". According to the most approved Im- 
perialist use of these terms, the term "civilization" 
refers to external and material achievements, 
while the term "culture" is reserved for the 
qualities and achievements of the spirit. Bearing 
this distinction in mind, the Imperialist 
philosophy asserts that many races and nations 
may have a common civilization, but not a com- 
mon Culture. Further, that Culture is the 
thing — in so far as the world and its destinies 
are concerned — and that the nations which we 
were wont to regard as upon an equal plane of 
civilization — taking the word in its broader 
meaning, which includes things spiritual as well 
as material — are really of different value and 
worth as far as the Historical Process is con- 
cerned. For while they are all on the same level 
of "civilization", in the new, restricted sense, they 
still are the carriers of different cultures — only 
one of them being the carrier of the real Culture, 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 111 

the Culture par excellence, which is destined to 
rule (and redeem) the world. 

Before leaving this fascinating subject it should 
be noted that in the terminology of Imperialism 
purely intellectual achievements are classed with 
the external or material things, and not with the 
spiritual ; are therefore part of "civilization" and 
not of "culture". Just what culture in the new 
sense is, has never been defined; and it is con- 
sidered to be something really indefinable. It is a 
mystical quality inborn in a race or nation, con- 
stituting its essence; a sort of metaphysical entity, 
like the Kantian "Ding an sich", which can only be 
described negatively, but which has, nevertheless, 
very positive and serious results. Its principal 
sphere of operations is History. It is here that it 
makes itself felt, and it is here that its character- 
istics may be observed and studied. 

Perhaps the most important conclusion drawn 
by the Imperialists themselves from these con- 
siderations, is that a nation's institutions are not 
part of its "civilization" but of its "culture". The 
point is very important, as it is determinative of 
the "home politics" of this movement. It may 
perhaps best be evaluated when compared with 
the old "liberal" ideas on the subject. According 
to the "liberal" theory the development of 



112 Socialism and War 

humanity towards a higher civilization develops, 
as part of this "civilizing" process, a higher form 
of political institutions — republican-democratic — 
which all nations are bound to adopt when they 
reach the high level of civilization for which these 
institutions are appropriate. In fact, these in- 
stitutions are themselves powerful engines of 
civilization, and whenever and wherever adopted 
aid materially the further course of development. 
This the new philosophy denies; and it insists 
that political institutions are not part of the com- 
mon "civilization" of mankind, but of its separate 
and distinct "cultures". Republican and demo- 
cratic institutions are not part and parcel of, nor 
do they correspond to, any higher degree of civil- 
ization than aristocratic or monarchical ones. Nor 
are republican and democratic institutions better 
per se than aristocratic or monarchical ones. On 
the contrary, a nation whose "culture" is not 
republican or democratic and whose "genius" has 
not evolved any such institutions, would be going 
backwards and betray its own "spirit" if it were 
to adopt such institutions. In fact, when history 
is consulted it will be found that republican and 
democratic institutions in any nation with a 
"culture" fit to survive, may, on the whole, be 
considered a mark of inferiority, unless they be 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 113 

merely the manifestations of a temporary 
"liberal" aberration, of an ailment whose chief 
symptom is a failure to appreciate "the true mean- 
ing of empire." 

The truly Chosen People has therefore either 
never adopted such institutions, or will soon dis- 
card them as "incompatible" with its destiny of 
World-Empire. The Chosen People is a Superman 
among nations, and must strive to dominate the 
world. But a nation cannot successfully play the 
Superman among nations, while it is governed on 
the principle of the equality of all men. Im- 
perialism must begin at home. But it is a world- 
philosophy which knows no basic distinctions be- 
tween "at home" and "abroad". The entire world 
and its destinies are encompassed within its 
vision. And it dreams no mean dreams. 

It rejects wholly, as mean and petty, the ideas 
of the "liberal-utilitarians" about "the greatest 
good to the greatest number." This world was 
not created for the low and petty bourgeois idea of 
insuring good, middle-class living conditions for a 
"level" mass of humanity. The real purpose of 
creation was to carry out the esthetically beauti- 
ful idea of developing a giant race of Supermen 
as its crowning glory. This race of Supermen, 
which shall possess the most remarkable Spirit, 



114 Socialism and War 

endowed with rare and indescribable qualities, 
shall develop a Culture which shall be the greatest 
testimonial to the wonderful wisdom and power 
of the Creator. 

To this end and purpose the Creator has singled 
out the Chosen People, and endowed it, as a race 
or nation, with those wonderful qualities which 
make the essence of its Spirit. Of course, it is 
not every mean individual member thereof 
that possesses these great qualities, but the 
Race or Nation as such, in its collective capacity. 
For the time being these qualities are in- 
carnated in the Supermen within the Nation, 
its great geniuses who are especially destined to 
carry out the purpose of the Creator by "leading" 
the Chosen People on its historical course of 
destiny, gloriously superior to the vulgar consider- 
ations of the mere material well-being of the 
masses of the people. 

For the Destiny of The Nation is to diffuse its 
"Culture" among the nations, exterminating the 
cultures which it may find opposing its own, so as 
to bring dominion to the only true Culture, for 
the greater glory of God. In order to accomplish 
its mission — from which it is mortal offense to 
shrink — the Chosen People must seek to subdue 
the entire world politically and dominate it econo- 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 115 

mically. For experience has shown that "Culture" 
follows the flag. History teaches us this lesson: 
that inferior races or nations, whether white or 
colored, fail to appreciate the beauties of a higher 
culture, and are utterly unable to acquire it even 
passively, unless and until they have been forcibly 
placed under the political tutelage and economic 
domination of the superior race whose culture 
is to be extended. In this connection it must be 
remembered that its language is a nation's most 
characteristically national means of expression. 
In fact it is part of its own flesh and blood, and 
possesses some of those very mystic qualities 
which constitute the essence of the national 
character and the basis of its special Culture. The 
most potent means, therefore, of spreading the 
culture of any given nation among alien peoples 
is to make them use the language of that nation. 
But that can only be done when the nation of the 
higher Culture politically dominates the peoples 
among whom this culture is to be spread. And in 
this material world of ours political dominion is 
inseparable from economic dominion. Hence, the 
cultural mission of the Nation becomes of neces- 
sity a striving to dominate the entire world econo- 
mically and politically — a striving for World- 
Empire. 



116 Socialism and War 

In this struggle for "the higher good", the 
nation cannot brook any opposition, and it must 
use all means at its command. If it falters in its 
course, if it does not dare to use any available 
means, out of cowardice or considerations of petty 
bourgeois "morality", it is doomed; for it has 
thereby proven that it lacks real superiority, that 
it is not a Superman among nations. It is the 
essential characteristic of a Superman among in- 
dividuals that he is superior to the considerations 
of common morality. He has his own morality, the 
pivotal consideration of which is success. Every- 
thing that furthers his cause, brings him success, 
is moral. For he is but an instrument of Destiny 
working out the Higher Will, which cannot be 
obtained by merely human morality. The same is 
true of Nations. The Superman among nations not 
only has the right, but is commanded, to disregard 
ordinary morality. Whatever furthers its course 
is moral. Whatever or whoever obstructs its 
course obstructs the progress of humanity to its 
ultimate goal, and is therefore immoral or crim- 
inal. 

Since the beginning of the present war many 
good people woke up with a start to find very 
responsible German scientists, men of letters, and 
statesmen, declaring, in effect, that the German 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 117 

people were superior to every other people on 
earth, and that warlike aggression on the part of 
Germany against its neighbors is justified by the 
mission of the German people to spread its 
"Culture" among the other and inferior nations. 
Good people usually wake up with a start, for the 
reason that "good people'' usually do not wake 
up until very late and until something very start- 
ling (to them) happens to wake them up. That is 
what makes them "good", by definition. Those 
who wake up early are classed among "dreamers", 
"visionaries", "utopians", etc. As a matter of 
fact, there was nothing startling about these dec- 
larations; except, perhaps, their extremely 
brusque form. Their substance had been an- 
nounced to the world time and again in quite un- 
mistakable, if more polite, language. 

And it should be noted here, "for the record", 
that these announcements have been received with 
an ever-increasing amount of respect and favor. 
In fact, the basic ideas underlying these declar- 
ations were already becoming quite popular. So 
much so, that to those who have followed the rise 
and progress of these ideas it must seem quite 
amazing how the same "good people" who ac- 
claimed these very announcements — when made in 
polite language and with the learned apparatus 



118 Socialism and War 

of a pseudo-science — as the last word in science, 
should be so startled and show so much resent- 
ment when they were made with directness and 
brusqueness, which the extraordinary situation 
should certainly excuse if not fully justify. 

It must also be added here that, while Germany 
was in the lead in developing this new philosophy 
or creed, and perhaps far ahead of the other 
nations in popularizing it, she was not alone 
in this good work. Much has been said since the 
beginning of this war about Treitschke, Nietzsche, 
and other German apostles of the new creed ; and 
the impression has been created that their Im- 
perialistic philosophy is an exclusively German 
product and has its adherents only among the 
citizens of the Fatherland. This is unfair to Ger- 
many as well as to the Imperialistic philosophy. 
The philosophy of Imperialism is a general pheno- 
menon of the highly developed capitalistic 
countries, and has had its apostles and propa- 
gandists in France and England as well as in Ger- 
many. It may be noted here as significant in this 
connection, that Houston Stewart Chamberlain, 
one of its great "scientific" exponents, is a born 
Englishman, although a German by adoption ; and 
that while he wrote his great treatise expoxmding 
this theory, in his adopted German tongue, and it 



The Ideologic Causes of the War 119 

was in Germany that it achieved its greatest 
popularity, it was translated into his native 
English under high auspices and achieved con- 
siderable popularity in England also. 

This is true not only of this philosophy in 
general, but practically of all of its details. It may 
strike us, for instance, as rather strange that a 
scientist like Prof. Miinsterberg should assert that 
Germany would be taking a step backward if she 
were to exchange her semi-autocratic and semi- 
feudal monarchical form of government for a 
more democratic and republican form. And we 
are likely to assume that this is a purely German 
mode of thought, due to the teachings of that same 
Treitschke and those other awful Germans whom 
the war has brought to our notice. A study of the 
intellectual development of Europe during the 
last half, and particularly during the last quarter 
century, will disclose, however, that the apostasy 
from republicanism is quite a genral phe- 
nomenon among the up-to-date intellectuals of 
that quarter of the globe, and that the monarch- 
ical and aristocratic principles have been growing 
steadily in favor. Furthermore, if we scrutinize H 
carefully American intellectual development for a 
generation past, we shall find that the intellectual / 
current away from democracy and republicanism 



120 Socialism and War 

and towards aristocracy and monarchy, has been 
wafted across the Atlantic and has made visible 
inroads upon our own political ideas. 



IV. 

THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE 

WAR AND THE STAKES 

INVOLVED. 

In the preceding two lectures I endeavored to 
show that the present war was the result of 
general causes, causes rooted deeply in the latest 
phase of capitalist economy and the moral and 
intellectual ideas produced thereby. In my last 
lecture, in discussing the ideologic causes of the 
war, I stated, however, that Germany was lead- 
ing the rest of the so-called civilized world in the 
development of this modern Imperialistic — that 
is, warlike — philosophy or creed, and leading 
far in advance of its competitors. It is this leader- 
ship in a general movement that has made Ger- 
many the aggressor in this war. Of the fact of 
German aggression in this war, there can be no 
doubt. In fact, it is hardly denied. Or rather, 
the denials, if any, are of a purely formal 
character, and do not touch the substance of the 



122 Socialism and War 

issue. But it would be a mistake to think, as some 
evidently do, that Germany fell on peaceful 
Europe like a hungry wolf on a flock of sheep. 
Without any desire to minimize the guilt of Ger- 
many — and I may say right here that in my 
opinion the guilt of Germany cries out to heaven 
— there is no denying the fact that the other civil- 
zed nations share in her guilt. Germany does not 
stand in this respect in a class by herself, but is 
merely "a leader of men", primus inter pares. 

And there is a reason for this leadership. But 
this reason has absolutely nothing to do with any 
racial or national characteristics of the German 
people. It might seem to be "just retribution" 
that Germany's undoubted guilt as the aggressor 
in this terrible war should be put to the credit of 
the German national character, in accordance with 
those race-theories which she herself has so as- 
siduously been developing for a generation past. 
But however "poetic" such justice might be, it 
would not be historic justice — which is the only 
justice. The fact is that Germany's leadership in 
Imperialism, and her consequent aggression in this 
war, is due to the same economic factor which has 
produced the general phenomenon of which it is 
part and parcel. The most striking fact in the 
history of our own times is undoubtedly the truly 



The Immediate Causes of the War 123 

marvellous economic development of Germany. 
But when you analyze the economic development 
of Germany into its constituent elements, you will 
find that she excels particularly in those indus- 
tries which have given our era its warlike char- 
acter. 

-7 
Of course, this war, like all great historic occur- 
rences, is the result of a concurrence of many con- 
tributing causes. But I do not hesitate to say that 
the most important cause — ^that cause which 
gives it its character and which may therefore 
be regarded, speaking generally, as the true cause 
of the war — is the fact that since the beginning 
of this century Germany has become the largest 
producer of iron and steel in the world ; and that 
she has been making such rapid strides in that par- 
ticular industry that in 1910 she produced twice 
as much iron and steel as England, her nearest 
competitor. Just look at the table showing the pro- 
duction of iron and steel by the leading countries 
of the world in that particular field, outside of the 
United States, since 1850. It is illuminating : 



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The Immediate Causes of the War 125 

You will notice that in 1850 Germany produced 
only about 15 per cent., considerably less than one- 
sixth of the amount of iron and steel then pro- 
duced by England. In half a century Germany 
increased her production of iron and steel to such 
an extent that she ran England a neck-and-neck 
race for the world-championship in that line of 
production. And only twelve years later her 
production of iron and steel was fully twice that 
of England. And those of you who have followed 
the development of international relations during 
the last quarter-century will undoubtedly have 
noticed that the crucial point in the change from 
a peaceful to a warlike attitude came towards the 
end of the last century; that is about the time 
when Germany was catching up with England in 
the production of iron and steel. Since then Ger- 
many has been far in advance of the rest of the 
world in the production of iron and steel, and sim- 
ultaneously the war-spirit which has been de- 
veloping throughout the world has been making 
particularly rapid strides in Germany. 

But in order that you may not get a one-sided 
view of this war, I intend to go into some detail as 
to its immediate causes; touching, incidentally, 
upon some contributing causes to which I pre- 
viously alluded. And first of all, it is well to re- 



126 Socialism and War 

member that the present European conflict is 
really two wars rolled into one. We all know that 
there are two theatres of war, an eastern and a 
western one, with Germany-Austria between 
them. But this division of the conflict is not merely 
geographical ; it is also historical. It is not merely 
that there are two fields of operations, but 
actually two separate wars, each having its own 
separate cause and its own character, historically 
considered. The war of Russia and Servia against 
Austria and Germany in the East belongs to an 
entirely different historical epoch, when con- 
sidered from the point of view of the development 
of capitalism, than the war of Germany against 
France and England in the West. And so it 
happens that Germany is not only the geograph- 
ical connecting link between the two theatres of 
the war, but also the historical connecting link 
between the two wars and their different char- 
acters. 

You will doubtless recall what I said about the 
two warlike epochs of capitalism, separated by an 
era of peace. Now, the two wars being waged in 
Europe may be distingushed, generally speaking, 
by a reference to the characteristics of the wars 
of those two epochs of capitalism. The war now 
being waged in the east of Europe belongs to the 



The Immediate Causes of the War 127 

first warlike period of capitalism, the purely 
Natonalistic period, at least as far as Germany's 
opponents are concerned; while the war waging 
on the western war-theatre belongs to the second, 
Imperialistic, period of capitalist development. 

The principle characteristic of the wars of the 
first hstorical epoch here in question, is, as I have 
already stated, that it is part of an attempt to get 
to the sea, — the march to the sea, as I called it. 
Now, most European countries reached the sea 
early. Those are the countries in which the modern 
national states were rounded out early, and which 
attained very early a comparatively high degree 
of commercial or industrial development. Such 
were England, Spain, France. These are countries 
either entirely surrounded by sea, or hav- 
ing natural boundaries on the landside, in the 
shape of huge mountain chains, separating them 
from their neighbors. But there was the great 
plain of central and eastern Europe, inhabited by 
Germanic and Slavonic tribes, with admixtures of 
such foreign elements as the Hungarians, and 
Finns, and Turks, wherein there were no 
mountain chains to delimit the places of habitation 
of the different races and to give each a well- 
defined course towards the sea. The result was 
great confusion. A sort of modern migration of 



128 Socialism and War 

the nations. A migration in which "the nations" in 
the primary sense, that is the peoples themselves, 
did not, indeed, move about very much, but in 
which "the nations" in the political sense did con- 
siderable stretching and moving of their limbs in 
an effort to reach the sea. 

This was particularly true of Russia, which 
was originally entirely cut off from the sea. A 
primitive pastoral or agricultural country can 
very well be satisfied to remain an entirely inland 
state. Not so a country which has started on the 
road of commercial and industrial development, or 
one which intends to do so. The entire history of 
Russia during the past two hundred years is 
therefore nothing but one great struggle to get to 
the sea. It was Peter the Great who turned 
Russia's face towards the West and Capitalism — 
or at least he symbolizes that turning point in 
Russian history — and it was the same Peter the 
Great who started Russia definitely on her march 
to the sea. She is still on that march ; for she has 
bad a long road to travel, and many battles to fight 
before she could get there. She is therefore still 
in the first warlike period of capitalism, trying to 
establish herself as a rounded out, self-sufficient 
economic unit with free access to the outside world 
for an exchange of products. And until she gets 



The Immediate Causes of the War 129 

there her economic development along capitalistic 
lines will be thwarted and her growth stunted, so 
that no matter what her extent of territory and 
military power, she will remain virtually a colony 
of her western neighbors, an object of economic 
exploitation. 

Now, when Peter the Great decided to start 
Russia on the road of capitalistic development he 
cast about him for an opening into the wide world 
for his "lines of communication", and he saw the 
Caspian and the Black Seas to the South and the 
Baltic to the North. He started on the move in 
both directions; and his successors have kept to 
the warpath ever since, with the result that 
Russia now completely controls the Caspian, con- 
trols a very large part of the Black Sea, and has a 
firm footing on the Baltic. "But the Caspian is 
nothing but a big inland lake. It is important for 
some parts of the Asiatic trade; but it does not 
lead into the wide open world. The same is true of 
the Black and Baltic Seas. With this all-impor- 
tant modification, however: while they are both 
practically inland seas, each has an outlet into the 
open sea; from the Baltic there is a road leading 
into the North Sea, while from the Black Sea there 
is a passage into the Mediterranean. But both of 
those avenues into the open sea are controlled by 



130 Socialism and War 

others: the road from the Baltic is practically 
controlled by Germany; while the door which 
leads from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean 
is kept shut tight by the Turk, who guards, like 
Cerberus of old, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, 
so that Russia may not get through. 

Of late you have been told a good deal about 
Russia's ardent and long-cherished ambition to 
possess Constantinople. And you have no doubt 
been told a great deal about the reasons for it; 
its being the imperial city of the Byzantine Em- 
perors, to whose Empire the Russian Czars are 
supposed to have succeeded; and the mother-city 
of the Greek Catholic Church, the official Russian 
Church, of which the Czar is the official head ; of 
the religious traditions connected with St. Sophia ; 
and a lot of similar stuff. All of which is good- 
enough filigree ; the substance which it covers be- 
ing, that Constantinople is the lock on the door 
opening from the Black Sea into the Mediterran- 
ean, and the great Ocean beyond. For the posses- 
sion of this lock, Russia has fought a century-long 
fight with the Turk, a fight that cannot cease until 
the lock is in her possession or until it is removed 
and the door left open. The peculiar thing about 
the struggle for Constantinople is that Russia 
would have been in possession of that historic 



The Immediate Causes of the War 131 

city long ago, the Turk being entirely too in- 
adequate as a guard of this all-important point, if 
it were not for the fact that other and more 
powerful opponents of Russia kept the "Sick Man 
of Europe" in his place, in order to keep Russia 
out. 

Considerable has been written by those who 
deal in destinies, about Russia's alleged "destiny" 
in the Far East, that is. Eastern Asia. These wise- 
acres were particularly loquacious immediately 
before the Russo-Japanese War, when it seemed 
as if Russia had all but forgotten about the Near 
East (which, by the way, means the West to 
Russia, to embark upon great schemes in the Far 
East. According to these dispensers of "destinies" 
Russia was really an Asiatic State, and her 
future lay in her Eastern interests. In short, the 
"destiny" of the Russian people required them to 
face East. 

The truth is that Russia's policy in Asia — 
aside from the general characteristic of acquisi- 
tiveness, which she shares with all other capital- 
istic countries in her stage of development — has 
been dictated by her general desire to get to the 
sea, as modified by the policy of her western neigh- 
bors to keep the western passages barred before 
her. Finding the way into the North Sea and into 



132 Socialism and War 

the Mediterranean barred, the Russian statesmen 
have hit upon the idea of reaching the Ocean by- 
pushing eastward instead of westward. Russia has 
attempted to do what Columbus set out to do, 
only reversing the direction : Columbus wanted to 
reach the East by sailing west; while Russia 
wanted to reach the West by going east. Colum- 
bus would have got there had he not found 
America lying in his way. Columbus was obliged 
to turn back ; the way to the East had to be found 
by sailing south ; and only now, after four hundred 
years has Columbus' original design been 
accomplished through the cutting of the Panama 
Canal. Russia would have accomplished her 
purpose had she not found the Jap lying in her 
way. Japan barred Russia's way as effectively as 
did America that of Columbus. The Russo-Jap- 
anese War put an end, for the time being at least, 
to Russia's attempts to get to the West by way of 
the East. 

This reopened and made acute the Near Eastern 
— that is, the Balkan — question. Having been 
foiled in the East, Russia was bound to try the 
West again; steering, like Columbus's succes- 
sors, a southern course. The Balkan question has 
two aspects: the relation of the Christian popula- 
tion of the Balkan Peninsula to their former 



The Immediate Causes of the War 133 

overlord, the Turk, and the conflicts between the 
different groups into which this population is 
broken up, on the one hand ; and, on the other, the 
relation betwen Russia and Austria, both of whom 
want to fish in troubled waters. Latterly, the latter 
aspects of the Balkan question have become com- 
plicated by Germany's design upon the Balkan 
Peninsula as part of her imperialistic or Pan-Ger- 
manistic schemes. 

In order to understand the different interests 
and antagonisms which enter into the Balkan 
question, as. well as their bearing on the larger 
political interests and antagonisms engendered by 
Modern Imperialsm, it will repay us to examine 
the geographical and economico-historical bear- 
ings of the Balkans a little more in detail. 

A glance at the map will show that in some 
respects the Balkan peninsula resembles the 
Spanish peninsula. Each forms by its southern 
extremity a passage-way into the Mediterranean 
Sea, separating Europe from other parts of the 
world. The Strait of Gibraltar, which forms the 
gateway from the Western Ocean into the Medi- 
terranean Sea separates Europe from Africa; 
while the Bosporus and Dardanelles, forming the 
passage-way from the Black Sea into the Medi- 
terranean, divide Europe from Asia. The import- 



134 Socialism and War 

ance of the Strait of Gibraltar from a commercial, 
and therefore, from a strategic point of view is 
universally recognized as of the first magni- 
tude. The Bosporus and Dardanelles may not 
be quite as important in one way, as they do 
not connect with the ocean. But in other ways 
their importance may even surpass that of Gib- 
raltar. 

In the first place the Strait of Gibraltar is not 
easily controlled. Notwithstanding the natural 
strength of Gibraltar, no power could effectually 
control the Strait by land fortifications alone, 
against a strong naval power ; while the Bosporus 
and the Dardanelles can be controlled against the 
greatest odds, owing to the extreme narrowness of 
these channels. The Bosporus is, in this respect, 
the most remarkable channel in the world. In its 
narrowest part it is hardly half a mile wide. The 
Dardanelles channel is not much wider. And the 
two together, with the Sea of Marmora between 
them, permit of such a combination of land and 
sea defenses as to make it absolutely impregnable 
under ordinary circumstances. But the Bosporus 
is even more important for peaceful pursuits than 
as a military stronghold. The Strait of Gibraltar 
separates Europe from Africa, and separates 
them most effectively. This gulf cannot possibly 



The Immediate Causes of the War 135 

be bridged. At least not in the present state of 
science. But the Bosporus can be bridged as 
easily as any ordinary river or rivulet, and 
trains can be sent across it from Europe to Asia 
without any difficulty whatsoever. While it forms 
a passage-way uniting the East with the West by 
water, it also forms a passage-way running North 
and South on land uniting Europe with Asia in 
a most effective and most convenient manner. 

Another important feature of Balkan 
geography must be noted. Unlike its Western 
counterpart, the Balkan peninsula turns its 
widest side towards the continent, and has no 
mountain-range frontier forming a barrier be- 
tween itself and the continent, such as the Pyre- 
nees. On the other hand, it is itself broken up 
into several divisions by mountain-chains running 
across it. The result was that while the Balkan 
Peninsula always formed one of the most coveted 
corners of the earth, it was naturally in a very un- 
favorable position for the formation of a big Bal- 
kan Nation. To this should be added, that about 
the time when the development of capitalism was 
forming strong consolidated nations in the west 
of Europe, the Balkan Peninsula was the principal 
seat of power of the Turkish invader of Europe, 



136 Socialism and War 

lying prostrate in his iron grasp for several cen- 
turies. 

We are often told that the Balkans are in- 
habited by a mixture of nations forming no racial 
unit, thus accounting for the continued strife 
among the different elements of the population of 
that peninsula. To my mind that is merely an- 
other way of saying that the Balkan Peninsula is 
still in a primitive stage of development. A close 
examination into historical facts would probably 
show that the ethnic elements on the Balkan Pen- 
insula are not more diversified than those which 
went into the composition of many a great nation 
which is now looked upon as a racial and national 
unit. The "diversity of races" on the Balkan 
Peninsula is not an ethnographical, but a 
historico-geo graphical fact. Whether the geo- 
graphical or the purely historical element has con- 
tributed more to this result is now hard to tell. But 
it may be asserted without fear of contradiction 
that the historic process of economic development 
has surmounted greater heights than the Balkan 
Mountains, and that these mountain ranges can- 
not stand permanently in the way of the organ- 
ization of one Balkan Nation, if the Mstorico-eco- 
nomical process should favor the formation of 
such an entity. 



The Immediate Causes of the War 137 

For the present, the Balkan territory is broken 
up into a group of struggling, wriggling national- 
ities, with Turkey in possession of its southern 
base and in control of the all-important Bosporus- 
Dardanelles passage. This gives color and 
direction to the Balkan Question. The "Question" 
is two-fold: On the one hand it is the question 
of "How long shall the Unspeakable Turk be per- 
mitted to remain in Europe ?" And on the other it 
reads : "Who shall inherit the Kingdom of Turkey 
in Europe when the Turk shall have been driven 
therefrom?" And the latter question has itself a 
double aspect. It may mean : How shall the terri- 
tory of the Balkan Peninsula be divided among 
the different "nationalities" now inhabiting it? 
And it may also mean : What outside Power shall 
succeed to the political influence over the Balkans 
which was once the Turk's? 

Of the great European Powers there are two 
that come into consideration directly in con- 
nection with the last query: Russia and Austria. 
Both of these Empires abut in territory on the 
Balkan Peninsula, and they have for a long time 
been in almost continual struggle for influence 
therein. 

Russia's interest in the Balkans is plain. It is 
part of her March to the Sea. She needs 



138 Socialism and War 

Constantinople, and has been trying to get it for 
more than two centuries. But she couldn't get 
there except by marching her armies south 
through the Peninsula, expelling the Turk from 
Europe on the way. Politically this has assumed 
the form of a policy of "liberation" towards the 
Balkan Slavs. Russia asserted a right and duty 
of protecting her "younger brothers", the 
Southern Slavs, against oppression by other 
nations, and of "liberating" them from the 
"foreign yoke" whenever that was deemed 
necessary by her to save them from oppression. 
And she has "liberated" the Balkan Slavs to a 
very large extent. The existence of the present 
kingdoms of Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, and 
Montenegro, is largely due to her efforts. But as 
the "liberation" of the Slavs was merely a means 
to an end, and that end — the possession 
of Constantinople — has not been achieved, she 
could not rest on her "liberation" laurels and leave 
the Balkans to the Balkan nations. In fact, this 
end made Russia's work of "liberation" in the 
Balkans of a peculiar kind. She wanted the 
Balkan Slavs freed from the Turk, but she did 
not want them united and strong. A strong 
Balkan nation or federation of nations might 
form just as strong an obstacle to her acquisition 



The Immediate Causes of the War 139 

of Constantinople as the Turk himself, — or even 
a stronger. For Turkey is in a process of decay, 
while a united Balkan nation would be likely 
to constantly grow in power. 

In this effort to keep the Balkan Nations 
weak and dependent on their neighbors, Russia 
had the full sympathy and co-operation of her 
great rival on the Peninsula, Austria-Hungary. 
The Dual Empire has reached the sea; but her 
position on the sea is a very precarious one. Her 
two sea-ports, Trieste and Fiume, are both 
practically Italian cities, and her loss of both may 
be only a question of time. But even with both 
of these ports, she considers her position on the 
sea unfavorable so long as she is confined to the 
upper corner of the Adriatic, and other powers 
are in control of the outlet from the Adriatic into 
the Mediterranean. She has therefore been cast- 
ing very longing glances upon the western coast 
line of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as upon the 
northern coast-line of the Aegean. 

In addition to this, and quite independent of 
her appetite for additional coast line, Austria is 
very anxious that the western coast line of the 
Balkan Peninsula should not fall to Servia, who 
is very anxious to get it, and to whom it would 
naturally belong if the Balkan nations were per- 



140 Socialism and War 

mitted to develop independently. As Servia is 
situated to-day, without an outlet on the sea, she 
is to all intents and purposes an Austrian colony, 
being economically subject to Austria, through 
whose territory alone her exports can reach the 
outside world. This is particularly unfortunate 
for Servia, because her exports come in direct 
competition with the exports of the Hungarian 
agrarians, and the Austro-Hungarian tariff policy 
is naturally shaped so as to put her at a dis- 
advantage. The impulse to march to the sea which 
is ever-present in countries with a capitalistic 
development is, therefore, particularly keen in 
Servia just now. But Austria, naturally, does not 
care to lose such an object of trade exploitation 
as Servia in her present condition presents to her. 
There are, also, purely political reasons why 
Austria does not want Servia to come into 
possession of the western coast line of the Balkan 
Peninsula, or of any part of it. Servia with an 
outlet to the sea means a strong and prosperous 
Servia. Such a Servia would naturally present a 
centre of attraction to the many millions of Serbs 
dwelling within the Dual Empire, and to all the 
other Slavs who are suffering under Magyar dom- 
ination in the Hungarian part of the Empire. This 
might tend to break up the entire Empire. For 



The Immediate Causes of the War 141 

the great love which the Magyars now bear the 
Dual Empire — in such striking contrast to their 
separatist tendencies of two generations ago — 
is due entirely to the fact that the Empire permits 
them to keep their Slav population under 
subjection. Hence Austria's general policy of 
keeping the Balkan nations from forming an in- 
dependent confederation strong enough to expel 
the Turk and withstand all outside influences. 

The result of this sympathetic bond of common 
interest between Russia and Austria to keep the 
Balkan nations from controlling the Balkan 
country has been the seething caldron of 
jealousies, animosities, and armed conflicts which 
make up the recent history of the Balkan Pen- 
insula. Each of these two powers has sought by 
intrigue to accomplish the double purpose of keep- 
ing the Balkan peoples disunited, and of increasing 
her own influence at the expense of the other, so 
as to be in direct line of succession to the Turk, 
when "The Sick Man of Europe'' finally breathes 
his last. 

Such was the Balkan situation when Germany 
discovered that she, too, had an interest in that 
part of Europe. But here we must pause a 
little to examine Germany's situation generally. 
Germany occupies a very anomalous position 



142 Socialism and War 

among the great national states. The Germans 
have not yet accomplished the task which the 
other great peoples of Europe have accomplished 
— that of forming a national state. The German 
Empire is not such a state. On the one hand it 
includes many elements that are not German, and 
on the other hand is does not include many im- 
portant portions of Germany proper. Let me 
illustrate. If you go to any part of France you 
may be sure that French is spoken there. The 
same is true of England. But not of Germany: 
There are many parts of Germany where the Ger- 
man language is a foreign tongue, and where the 
population must be coerced into speaking it 
against their will. Again, if you want to look for 
the centre of English culture, you will naturally 
look to London, and for the centre of French 
culture to Paris. But if you want to look for the 
centre of German culture you might look either 
to Berlin or to Vienna, although the latter is not 
part of official Germany. And the fact that there 
may be large centres of English culture outside of 
England proper — using "England" here as 
synonymous with the United Kingdom — does 
not alter the situation. New York or Boston 
might be centres of English culture. But their 
position is utterly different from that of Vienna. 



The Immediate Causes of the War 143 

They are offshoots of the old trunk; parts of a 
colony in the Greek sense of the word. A child 
begotten of the mother-country, but big enough 
to lead an independent existence, and actually 
leading an independent existence notwithstand- 
ing sameness of language and affinity of culture. 
Not so with Vienna. It is not an offshot of Ger- 
many. It is not part of a German country at all. 
It is the capital of an Empire mostly Slav and 
predominantly non-German. This incongruity 
of Vienna being non-German is enhanced by the 
fact that it is nothing else. It is not "Austrian" 
in the national sense — as Boston is American, 
for instance, notwithstanding its English speech 
— because there is no such nationality, Austria 
being merely a politico-geographical designation. 
The truth is that from a national point of view 
Germany is not yet. 

The same is true of Germany when viewed from 
an economic point of view. It is true that Ger- 
many has reached the sea. But it has reached 
it only partly. A glance at the map will show 
that from any national-economic point of view 
Holland belongs with Germany, and the Dutch 
sea-coast is the natural western boundary of the 
German Empire; and the same is true to some 
extent at least of Belgium. 



144 Socialism and War 

Germany is, therefore, still in the first warlike 
period of capitalism, — the formative period, the 
period when great national states are forming by 
absorbing all kindred groups and marching to the 
sea. As such it should be Germany's natural and 
legitimate ambition to include German-Austria 
within her boundaries; and it may be equally 
natural for her, though not as legitimate, to 
desire to absorb Holland too and part of Belgium, 
and to make them part of the German Empire. 
And there is no doubt that until recently such 
was the ambition of all good German patriots. 

A united Germany was the ideal, also, of all 
revolutionary and radical Germans. It is well- 
known that the best men in Germany con- 
sidered Bismarck's policy, which excluded Ger- 
man-Austria from the German Empire, little 
short of criminal; and they fervently hoped 
for the day when this crime would be atoned for 
by the organization of a German Republic which 
should include all German lands. Those who had 
an eye more to the economic than the cultural 
questions involved, undoubtedly hoped that Hol- 
land, which is racially near kin to the people of 
Germany, would be glad to come in of her own 
free will in such an efficient and highly cultural 
state as a United German Republic would un- 



The Immediate Causes of the War 145 

doubtedly be. The organization of such a state 
pre-supposes, of course, the break-up of the 
Austrian Empire. But what good German cared 
for the existence of that Empire, — that "political 
monstrosity", that crazy-quilt of a state, the 
creation of outworn political ideas, political in- 
trigue, and the political crimes of a by-gone age? 
Then came the new spirit, — the spirit of the Era 
of Imperialism, and all this changed. The dream 
of a United Germany was forgotten before it was 
realized. And Germans suddenly discovered that 
they had a vital interest in the continued existence 
of the Austrian Empire which makes a United 
Germany impossible. As is frequently the case 
with countries which came late into the whirlpool 
of capitalistic development, Germany's economic 
development during the last half -century or so 
has been proceeding hot-house fashion. With the 
result that the different periods of capitalist 
development — which in older countries have 
lasted through many generations, and therefore 
have had a chance fully to develop their special 
characteristics — here crowd one another, so that 
these characteristics become blurred and obli- 
terated or do not develop at all. So the textile- 
peace period has been "skipped" by Germany, and 
she walked into the Imperialistic era before she 



146 Socialism and War 

was out of the first, the formative, warlike era 
of Capitalism. And the place of honor which 
United Germany for a while occupied in German 
political thought is now occupied by Pan- 
Germanism, 

Pan-Germanism is the political expression of 
Germany's economic aspirations. And here it is 
well to note that the expression is somewhat mis- 
leading. It does not mean what its etymology 
would indicate. It does not mean a union of all 
German peoples. And it is, therefore, entirely 
different from Pan-Slavism, for instance, which 
means the union of all Slav peoples. As an ab- 
stract proposition it is merely another expression 
for the sentiment Deutschland uber alles — Ger- 
many (should be put) above every other country. 
It is the dream of world-empire, with the old 
Roman Empire as a model. A world-empire 
presided over and ruled by Germany, with the 
assistance of its legions, as Rome ruled her 
dominions. It is for this hideous dream of a mili- 
tary world-empire that Germans have given up 
their cherished hope of a United Germany. It is 
for this that they are willing to let some fifteen 
millions of Germans and the oldest center of 
German culture remain outside of Germany. For 



The Immediate Causes of the War 147 

such are the dictates of Pan-Germanism when 
translated into practice. 

As a practical proposition, Pan-Germanism — 
in so far at least as it has assumed definite prac- 
tical forms as a political project — means the 
creation of a world-empire the main element of 
which shall be a continuous body of territory con- 
taining the principal parts of the mainland of 
Europe and Asia and stretching from ocean to 
ocean. Roughly outlined this body of territory 
would begin at the Atlantic Ocean, having the 
coast line from the Strait of Dover to the Scan- 
dinavian mainland as its Northwestern boundary ; 
it would then run in a general Southeasterly 
direction, and include Belgium and Holland, Ger- 
many and Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, Asia 
Minor, Mesopotamia, and India, reaching the 
Pacific at the Indian Ocean, which would form its 
Southeasterly boundary. Of course, there would 
be trimmings and outlets on all sides and in all 
directions as befits such a giant body. But 
above all, in order to insure its being an economic 
entity as well as a political one, it would be welded 
together with an iron ring of railroad lines run- 
ning through its entire length and having the 
necessary ramifications. 

Of course, this requires considerable recon- 



148 Socialism and War 

struction of the present map of the world. It 
requires the snuffing out of the breath of life of 
some independent states, whose people may be 
stupid enough to prefer independent existence in 
a ridiculously small way to being part and parcel 
of such a wonderful world-empire. But no matter : 
we have our professors to explain to them the 
superior beauties of German Culture, and we have 
our bayonets to enforce their arguments in a most 
convincing manner. On the other hand, we shall 
have to keep alive, for a time at least, some mori- 
bund political bodies by artificial stimulants. In 
this, too, our great scientists and our great army — 
the most wonderful military machine the world 
has ever seen — will undoubtedly succeed. 

That we have a right to do all this goes without 
saying. The very fact that we have the power to 
do it shows that we have the right to do it. In 
fact, we are bidden by our Destiny to do it. For 
we must have it done. Otherwise, we shall fail in 
our mission of making Germany dominate the 
world, and having German Culture obliterate and 
take the place of every other form of civilization. 

Antwerp and Rotterdam are absolutely essen- 
tial to the scheme. Germany wants its "natural" 
ocean front, which includes the Belgian and Dutch 
coast lines, as a glance at the map will show. As 



The Immediate Causes of the War 149 

it is, these two little countries levy toll on German 
commerce. Antwerp and Rotterdam have grown 
immensely rich because of it. There are probably 
no two other cities in the world, certainly not in 
Europe, which have grown so rich in so short a 
time as have Rotterdam and Antwerp in the past 
fifty years. But it is the German hinterland that 
has made them grow so fast. Between them these 
two cities control the avenues which lead from the 
Rhineland and South Germany to the ocean and 
into the wide world. It is the height of absurdity 
that a great empire like the present Germany 
should permit the mouth of its "national river", 
the river which not only bears a large portion of 
its commerce, but most of its legends and tradi- 
tions, to be controlled by a handful of recalcitrant 
Germans who imagine themselves to be a separate 
nation and refuse to come into the Empire out of 
stupidity or greed. With this empire turned into 
a world-empire this anomalous situation, then ab- 
solutely unbearable, will simply have to cease. 

The Balkans, too, are indispensable to this 
scheme. The great strategic and commercial 
importance of the Bosporus-Dardanelles has al- 
ready been explained. Its importance is decisive 
in this world-empire scheme, whose chief econo- 
mic weapon is to be the creation of the fastest 



150 Socialism and War 

route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, tapping the 
richest Asiatic countries on the way. The Bal- 
kan Peninsula — through which the road which is 
to span the Bosporus must run — is peopled mostly 
by Slavs. Hence the necessity of keeping alive the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which forms the 
political connecting link between the German Em- 
pire and the Slavs of Southeastern Europe. 
Hence, also, the necessity of supporting Austria 
in her Balkan policy, which includes two points 
essential to the success of the Pan-Germanistic 
scheme: Keep Russia from Constantinople, and 
keep the Slavic principalities on the peninsula 
weak enough so that they can not offer any re- 
sistance to the German-Austrian plans. Austria 
is simply Germany's outpost, — the political 
means by which the German Race is to control the 
Southeastern Slavs. 

With the Balkans dominated by Austria, there 
is practically no further obstacle to the carrying 
out of the great scheme of Pan-Germanism. It is 
true that Turkey is still in possesion of Constant- 
inople, and of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. But 
"The Sick Man of Europe" has long ago been con- 
vinced that unless he casts his lot with Germany 
his lease of life is likely to be cut very short. 
There is, therefore, very little difficulty to be ap- 



The Immediate Causes of the War 151 

prehended from Turkey,— if the Sultan and his 
advisers were permitted to follow their own in- 
clinations. Unfortunately, the Sultan is not mas- 
ter of his own destinies. He is not strong enough 
to stand on his own legs. And the question is: 
Will the other powers, particularly England, 
stand by and permit this great scheme to be car- 
ried out without a fight? 

The realization of this scheme would change the 
commercial routes of the world ; it would probably 
destroy England's carrier-trade by sea and de- 
prive her of India. Incidentally, it would make 
England contribute to the expense of building 
those very railways whose chief object is to put 
her out of business. England must, therefore, 
fight. And the great problem, from the Pan- 
German point of view, is to make her fight under 
circumstances that will insure her defeat. 

This can be accomplished by isolating her. A- 
lone she would, of course, be no match for the 
Austro-German-Turkish combination. But these 
very schemes compel England to abandon her tra- 
tional policy of "splendid isolation", and join 
hands with her traditional enemy across the chan- 
nel, and even with her great rival in Asia, the 
Russian Bear. Politics make strange bedfellows : 
this applies particularly to world-politics. Eng- 



152 Socialism and War 

land and France have never been known to be 
great friends. The Hundred Years' War is, of 
course, a matter of ancient history. The wars of 
the Age of Louis XIV and the Seven Years' War 
which culimated in the cession of France's Amer- 
ican possesions to England, may, perhaps, also be 
considered too ancient to be a living influence. 
But the Napoleonic wars are of comparatively 
recent date, and the Fashoda incident happened 
but yesterday. English and- Russian rivalry in 
Asia is not only century-old, but has been con- 
tinuous and persistent. England has been chiefly 
responsible for the thwarting of Russia's designs 
on Constantinople. To-day England is united with 
France and Russia in the so-called Entente Cor- 
diale, and the ancient enemies are fighting 
shoulder to shoulder one of the greatest fights 
that the world has ever witnessed. 

I have already intimated that England was 
forced out of her "splendid isolation" and into the 
Entente Cordiale by the schemes of Pan-German- 
ism which threaten her present position as an in- 
dustrial and commercial nation. I may add here 
that the beginnings of the Entente Cordiale can 
be traced directly to the first practical step in the 
realization, or attempted realization, of the Pan- 
Germanistic dream — the Bagdad Railway. The 



The Immediate Causes of the War 153 

Bagdad Railway was, in my opinion, such an im- 
portant factor in bringing about this war, and 
its history illustrates so well what I have said 
about the economic causes of modern imperialism, 
that I think it worth while to give it a few 
moments of our time, so as to examine it in outline 
at least. 

Some time in the eighties of the last century, 
about the time when Germany started her imperi- 
alistic carreer, a group of German capitalists and 
promoters obtained from the Sultan a concession 
to build a railroad which was to extend, ultimately, 
from Constantinople, through Asia Minor and 
Mesopotamia, to Bagdad, and from there to the 
Persian Gulf. Building on some sections of this 
territory began not long afterwards; but very 
little progress was made until well into this cen- 
tury, owing to difficulties of a financial as well as 
of a political nature. 

When the project was first given to the world it 
was hailed as one of the greatest cultural under- 
takings as well as one of the most promising from 
an economic point of view. This railroad would 
not only connect the Mediterranean with the 
Indian Ocean and the Pacific, but would traverse 
regions which were at one time the seats 
of the highest civilizations of their day, — 



154 Socialism and War 

regions whose natural capacity to support 
a busy and thriving population has already been 
demonstrated. Some of the territory was at one 
time accounted among the most fruitful in the 
world. It was in Mesopotamia, now to be tapped 
by this railroad, that the Biblical paradise was 
located, according to tradition. It is true that 
large portions of this territory have since turned 
waste. But with the new culture that the rail- 
road was to bring into this part of the world, its 
fruitfullness and great economic value would re- 
turn, — that is, after a time and after the expen- 
diture of some capital for irrigation works and 
similar permanent improvements. 

Nevertheless, the problem of building the rail- 
road was not a simple one, even from the purely 
financial point of view. You certainly cannot lure 
capital into a railway enterprise by the prospect 
of "redeeming'* Nineveh and Babylon. Nor can 
you get the necessary capital for such an enter- 
prise when the prospect of large dividends which 
are to accompany the redeeming of old cultures, 
or the propagation of new ones, is too distant to be 
comfortable. Capital is proverbially "timid". 

So that, notwithstanding the great economic 
prospects of this railroad — perhaps the finest of 
their kind in the world — "capital" wouldn't 



The Immediate Causes of the War 155 

bite. That is to say, on the strength of the 
"prospects" alone. But capital, or at least 
capitalists were very anxious to bite, if the road 
was to be built on the terms which I have 
mentioned in a preceding lecture as the proper 
terms for railroad building of the "redeeming" 
and "civilizing** kind. The German Government, 
therefore, bestirred itself on behalf of its culture- 
bearing railroad-builders, with the result that the 
Turkish Government agreed to subsidize the enter- 
prise to such an extent that, as far as the German 
capitalists were concerned, the fruitf ulness of the 
country and profitableness of the enterprise were 
to become immediate and assured. 

But that was not the end of the matter. "The 
Sick Man of Europe" is not exactly his own 
master. His health is under the supervision of a 
committee of doctors known as the Great Powers. 
Turkey is so heavily indebted to foreign capital- 
ists that her revenues were many years ago 
placed under the supervision of an international 
commission representing the great European 
Powers, who see to it that no part of these 
revenues are applied to other purposes than 
those agreed upon, — current expenses and the 
payment of interest. The duties which Turkey 
can levy on imports is prescribed for her by 



156 Socialism and War 

the same Great Powers, and she has no right to 
increase her revenues by increasing these duties, 
without their consent. And as an increase of 
duties on imports was practically the only source 
out of which Turkey could pay the subsidy to the 
Bagdad Railway, the financing of that railway 
became largely a matter of international politics. 
The increase of duties on imports in order to 
provide a subsidy for the Bagdad Railway was 
manifestly to the disadvantage of those powers 
who were not directly interested in that enter- 
prise: their merchants who exported to Turkey 
would actually be bearing the cost of the building 
of that railway, the profits of which would be 
reaped by the German entrepreneurs. And as 
England was doing the largest export business to 
Turkey, England vetoed the plan of paying the 
subsidy out of increased import duties, and there- 
by endangered the entire enterprise. 

But this was not the only source of difficulty. 
At first Russia and then England had other 
objections to the Bagdad Railway scheme, besides 
the purely financial ones just mentioned. Russia's 
objections were mostly of a military-strategic 
nature, and they were obviated by shifting some- 
what the line of the road. England was at first 
rather favorable to the plan, and even helped the 



The Immediate Causes of the War 157 

German concessionaires at the initial stages of 
the enterprise with her influence at the Porte, 
which was then very strong. This was at the 
time when England was still dreaming pacific 
dreams, and was making Germany gifts of such 
strategic positions as Heligoland. But by the time 
the project began to be realized and assume its 
true proportions, England was herself in the 
throes of Imperialism, and she assumed an 
attitude of unalterable hostility. 

This hostility led to what is known as the 
"Koweit Incident". As I have already stated, the 
Bagdad Railway was not to stop at Bagdad, but 
was to run on to the Persian Gulf. Its terminus 
on the Gulf was to be Koweit, the very best, if not 
the only possible terminus for such a railroad. 
The principal objection to the entire scheme, from 
the English point of view, was this very feature, 
— its terminating on the Gulf, which also made 
it so important from the Pan-Germanistic point 
of view. England was therefore resolved to pre- 
vent this at all costs. And she did, — for the 
time being at least. When it became evident that 
Germany was reaping great "diplomatic" victories 
at Stamboul, and that the Sultan was irrevocably 
committed to Germany's plans, England dis- 
covered that Turkey's title to suzerainty over the 



158 Socialism and War 

Province of Koweit was of doubtful character, 
and that her interests demanded that she take a 
hand in the quarrels of some native chieftains 
with a view to eliminating the Sultan from the 
situation. One fine morning an English man-of- 
war appeared in the harbor of Koweit, and Koweit 
was declared an independent principality, care 
being taken that its "independent" ruler should 
look upon the Bagdad Railway scheme from the 
English point of view. 

The Koweit incident stopped the progress of the 
Bagdad Railway. Work continued on different 
sections of the road, but it was quite apparent 
that the original scheme, with those features of it 
which were so important from the "world-politics" 
point of view, would have to be abandoned, unless 
Germany could score some more "diplomatic" 
victories and compel England to abandon her 
opposition. But after many vicissitudes German 
diplomacy was decisively defeated by the rap- 
prochement between France and England, and the 
"Entente Cordiale" which followed it. This defeat 
was formally acknowledged by Germany in the 
agreement made in 1911,— the year, it will be 
recalled, of the Agadir Incident, in which Ger- 
many's diplomacy suffered another signal defeat 
at the hands of the "Entente Cordiale". By that 



The Immediate Causes of the War 159 

agreement Germany practically gave up the Per- 
sian Gulf end of the enterprise, in return for 
England's formal approval of the remainder 
of the plan. This makes the road end nowhere, 
and robs it of its great importance as a part of 
the "Ocean to Ocean" world-empire scheme. 

In the meantime history was being made on 
another part of the great field of operations en- 
compassed in the Pan-Germanistic scheme. 

As we have already seen the Balkans form an 
indispensable link in the same scheme of Pan-Ger- 
manism, of which the Bagdad Railway is so im- 
portant a factor. And this railway itself loses its 
entire importance, as a part of the Pan-German- 
istic scheme, if it cannot be joined to a trans-con- 
tinental European railway under the complete 
domination of Germany. Such a railway must, 
of course, run through the Balkan peninsula. The 
fight for the Bagdad Railway was therefore 
carried on simultaneously on both sides of the 
Bosporus. And it was the fight on the European 
side that first led to a resort to arms, and led 
directly to the present war. It may be said 
truthfully that the present war was declared not 
on August 1st, 1914, but on October 7th, 1908, 
when Austria announced that she had annexed 



160 Socialism and War 

Bosnia and Herzegovina, two Balkan provinces 
populated mainly by Serbs. 

In 1878, after the Russo-Turkish War which 
led to a re-arrangement of Balkan affairs, these 
two provinces, which formed part of Turkey in 
Europe, were placed under Austrian adminis- 
tration, although they nominally remained Turk- 
ish dependencies. These two provinces, together 
with the little patch of land known as the Sanjak 
of Novibazar, immediately adjoining these pro- 
vinces to the south, and similarly placed under 
Austrian control in 1878, formed the chief and im- 
mediate bone of contention between Austria and 
Servia; a contention which received world-wide 
importance through the Pan-Germanistic scheme. 
We shall, therefore, consider these Provinces from 
their local as well as their general aspects, so that 
we may form an opinion of their role in the 
specifically Balkan complications as well as in the 
war which is now waging. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina have a population of 
nearly two millions, mainly of Servian stock. The 
Sanjak of Novibazar has a population of less than 
two hundred thousand, about three-fourths of 
which is Serb. The first two provinces are im- 
portant in themselves, at least from the Servian 
point of view, as an addition to the present King- 



The Immediate Causes of the War 161 

dom of Servia of the territory of these two pro- 
vinces with nearly two million population would 
mean a great increase of its power. The im- 
portance of Novibazar is chiefly strategic. And 
the three together possess particularly great value 
from the Pan-Germanistic point of view. 

The Sanjak of Novibazar is a small, and in it- 
self unimportant territory. Its importance lay 
in the fact that it was shoved in like a wedge 
between Servia and Montenegro. It separated 
these two racially related Kingdoms, and kept the 
more important of them, Servia, from the sea- 
coast which it would get by a union of the two. 
On the other hand it connected the Ausro-Hun- 
garian Empire, through Bosnia-Herzegovina, to 
the North of it, with the Turkish Empire to the 
South. Bosnia and Herzegovina lie immediately 
to the north of Novibazar, bounded by Austria- 
Hungary, Servia, and Montenegro, except at the 
point where the Sanjak separated these two King- 
doms, where it formed the boundary of Bosnia- 
Herzegovina. 

From the local, or Austro-Servian point of view, 
the importance of these territories lay in this: 
The possession of the Sanjak of Novibazar by 
Servia would permit the union of Servia and Mon- 
tenegro, uniting their divided strength and 



162 Socialism and War 

presenting a solid front against Austria in case 
of trouble. The possession by Servia of Bosnia- 
Herzegovina would mean an enormous accession 
of power for Servia, besides tending to unite 
Servia with Montenegro, and the creation of a 
great Slavic centre immediately to the South of 
the Dual Empire, a centre to which the Slavs of 
that Empire, and particularly the Servians, of 
whom there are many in that Empire, would 
naturally gravitate. But most important of all, — 
the possession of either Bosnia-Herzegovina or the 
Sanjak of Novibazar by Servia or Servia-Mon- 
tenegro would form an impassible barrier be- 
tween Austria-Hungary and the lower Balkans. 
That is, it would exclude the Dual Monarchy from 
participation in the division of the Turkish 
Dominions in Europe when the time came for 
such division, thereby forever checking her 
designs on the lower Adriatic and the Aegean 
Sea. 

From the larger, Pan-Germanistic point of view, 
the possession by Servia or Servia-Montenegro of 
either Bosnia-Herzegovina or Novibazar would 
stop the march of the German Empire southward 
to the Bosporus, and would break the great Ger- 
man chain which is to unite the Atlantic with the 
Pacific in one world-empire. 



The Immediate Causes of the War 163 

In 1908 Germany and Austria thought the time 
opportune to check Servians ambitions and to 
approach the final realization of the Balkan 
end of the World-empire scheme (and, incident- 
ally, of the Bagdad Railway project) , by formally 
annexing Bosnia-Herzegovina. The time was 
deemed opportune because Russia, who had been 
weakened by the Japanese War, was too weak to 
offer any opposition alone, and France, her only 
ally, had neither sufficient power nor sufficient in- 
terest in the subject-matter of the quarrel to risk 
a war with Germany. In order to further weaken 
Russia, and prevent any union of the Balkan 
nations in opposition to the grab, Bulgaria was 
won over to the plan, her remuneration being 
complete independence from Turkey, who up to 
then had a formal suzerainty over the principality. 
And so, on October 7, 1908, the simultaneous 
announcements were made, by Austria, that she 
had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina; and by Bul- 
garia, that she no longer recognized the Sultan's 
overlordship, and that Prince Ferdinand had 
assumed the title of Czar of Bulgaria. 

The coup succeeded. Nobody dared do anything 
in opposition to the German-Austrian schemes, 
and they seemed on the way towards complete 
realization. But there followed unlooked for con- 



164 Socialism and War 

sequences: The Dual Alliance between Russia 
and France became the Triple Entente, with 
England as the third member; the two Balkan 
Wars — the second practically the direct result 
of Austrian intervention, carrying out the policy 
which indicated the annexation — with the defeat 
of Bulgaria by Servia ; followed by a strong Serb 
national movement culminating in the Serajevo 
shooting. 

Some of these events were not only unlooked 
for, but almost unbelievable. That England 
should abandon her century-old policy of oppo- 
sition to Russia was amazing. That Servia should 
defeat Bulgaria was contrary to the best military 
opinion. 

The net result of these events was a distinct 
weakening of the international position of the 
Austro-German combination, particularly with 
respect to its Balkan Peninsula-Bagdad Rail- 
way interests; at least as viewed from the Pan- 
German view-point. We have already mentioned 
the fact that in 1911 Germany was compelled to 
accept defeat and abandon the Bagdad-Persian 
Gulf extension of the Bagdad Railway in so far 
as its political control was concerned. The same 
year saw the German diplomatic defeat in 
Morocco, following the Agadir Incident. The 



The Immediate Causes of the War 165 

situation on the Balkan peninsula after the con- 
clusion of the Second Balkan War was anything 
but satisfactory. It is true that the German 
powers had succeeded in arresting Servians march 
to the sea by the creation of the Albanian King- 
dom. But the new Kingdom was evidently still- 
born and destined to fall a prey to Servia or a 
Serbo-Greek combination. Turkey was eliminated 
from the Balkan situation, except at the Bosporus- 
Dardanelles Strait. But most important of all, 
the Vienna-Constantinople-Bagdad chain was 
broken. Unless, therefore, Servia was reduced to 
an Austrian dependency, she would interpose an 
insurmountable barrier to the ambitions of 
Austria, and the abandonment of the entire 
scheme of Pan-Germanism seemed only a matter 
of time. 

Something had to be done, and done at once: 
Before Servia gathered sufficient strength to fight 
her way to the sea. Before Russia completed the 
reorganization of her military forces, in which she 
was busily engaged. Before the influence of the 
Triple Entente, which was evidently growing, had 
grown much further, and had broken the awe in 
which Germany's power was held. While the 
Triple Alliance, whose bonds were perceptibly 
loosening, owing to the acuteness of the Balkan 



166 Socialism and War 

situation in which the interests of Austria and 
Italy were irreconcilable, had not yet completely 
broken down. While Turkey — now completely 
under the thumb of Germany, but whose actions 
could not be foretold a few years in advance — still 
remained dependable. It was evident that if Pan- 
Germanism was to be realized it had to be fought 
for with arms, — as diplomacy had completely 
failed. And it was equally evident that if it was 
to be fought for, the sooner the better. Germany 
had failed diplomatically, but as an armed force 
she was at the height of her power, while her 
opponents were unready and as yet disorganized. 
At this juncture came the Serajevo shooting. 
This made the crisis inevitable. Again speaking 
from the Pan-Germanist point of view: On the 
one hand, it furnished an excuse for war that 
could perhaps never be duplicated. And on the 
other, a failure to act now would be such a diplo- 
matic defeat as would make all future attempts 
to gain anything in that way impossible, and 
would compel the definite abandonment of all 
thoughts of world-dominion for a considerable 
time to come at least, if not forever. It meant the 
abandonment of the attempt to dominate the Bal- 
kans by means of Austria, and with it the beauti- 
ful vision of a German world-empire, with the 



The Immediate Causes of the War 167 

unlimited possibilities of railroad building in the 
Balkans, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Arabia, India ; 
not to mention the deflection of the principle trade 
route to the East from the Suez Canal and into 
German-controlled territory, thus driving Eng- 
land out of the world's carrying trade. 

So the blow was struck. In the interest of 
German railroad building, ship building, and of 
the export of German capital generally for the 
permanent improvement of "unimproved" 
countries; under the stimulus of an enormous 
production of iron and steel, but in the name of 
German Culture and of Germany's Destiny. And 
the blow was struck back in the name of liberty 
and independence, but really to protect the great 
material interests which the different nations have 
at stake. England and France have their own 
railroad and ship-builders to protect, their own 
iron and steel to sell ; and these would be in grave 
danger if Germany were permitted to carry out 
her world-empire schemes. And not only would 
these particular interests suffer, but owing to the 
development of modern production and in the 
inter-industrial distribution already mentioned, 
their entire economic life might be endangered if 
the development of these industries were arti- 
ficially interfered with. Russia and Servia, on the 



168 Socialism and War 

other hand, are seeking the extension of their 
territory in an effort to reach the sea, which is an 
imperative law of capitalistic development en- 
joined upon all countries which desire to develop 
an absolutely independent capitalistic economy. 
Belgium wants to keep for her own capitalists the 
lucrative trade of Antwerp which Germany would 
fain transfer to German capitalists. 



V. 

THE WAR AND THE SOCIALISTS 

In the preceding lecture I have attempted 
to treat the present war as a scientific prob- 
lem only, as a question of cause and effect pure 
and simple. This is in accordance with what I 
believe to be the spirit not only of true scientific 
method, but also of Socialist philosophy. Now 
there are people who believe that because a phe- 
nomenon is treated scientifically, as a problem 
of cause and effect, it excludes the "human" 
element so-called,— the questions of judgment 
and sympathy. These people believe that when 
we have stated that a certain historical 
phenomenon. is the result of certain economic or 
social forces, we have thereby foreclosed ourselves 
of all right to approve or disapprove. That we 
have thereby eliminated the element of individual 
or group responsibility, because we have reduced 
the humans involved therein to mere automatons 
devoid of any will-power and therefore not 
morally responsible for their acts. 



170 Socialism and War 

The question of the relation between the general 
forces, social, economic, or otherwise, which 
determine the general course of historic events, 
and the human beings who are the actors in those 
events is a very important and intensely interest- 
ing philosophic problem. This is not, however, 
either the time or the place to enter upon a dis- 
cussion of that problem. Suffice it to say, that we 
who consider ourselves the followers of the philo- 
sophic teachings of Marx, which are generally 
known under the name of the Materialistic Con- 
ception of History, believe in the moral respon- 
sibility of the individual for his actions while par- 
ticipating in the historic process; although we 
believe that the general course of history is deter- 
mined by social and economic forces beyond the 
control of the individual. There is, therefore, in 
our way of looking at the historical process, room 
not only for the scientific investigation of cause 
and effect, but also room for our sympathy and 
the passing of moral judgment. And since the 
human beings who are "making history" are 
not mere automatons but may profoundly in- 
fluence the process, there is also the possibility of 
"learning a lesson". It is with these latter 
"human" and "practical" aspects of our problem 



The War and the Socialists 171 

that we shall concern ourselves in this and the 
next lecture. 

The first question that presents itself to us 
when we come to consider the war as the result 
of human conduct, instead of that of blind econo- 
mic forces, is: Was the war justifiable? And 
the answer that naturally suggests itself to us, in 
view of the awful carnage and devastation, the 
incalculable waste of human life and treasure, is 
that it was not. Nothing, it seems, could justify 
the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands, 
nay, millions, of human beings, the flower of the 
human race intellectually as well as physically. 
Nor, it seems, could any possible advantage to be 
gained by war be sufficient to recompense for the 
enormous waste of property, the accumulations 
of the toil, the industry, and the intellectual 
genius and artistic inspiration of the race during 
many generations past. 

I said this answer naturally suggests itself to 
us. Because it is only natural that we who are 
look at it from the purely humanitarian point 
of view. This point of view is particularly 
not directly interested in the conflict, whose 
passions have not been inflamed thereby, should 
natural to us Socialists who profess to be lovers 



172 Socialism and War 

of peace, and claim to be the only real social force 
making for peace. 

And yet, I must state at the outset that this is 
not my point of view. I do not deprecate the 
humanitarian point of view. In fact I recognize 
its legitimacy when viewed purely as a psycholog- 
ical phenomenon. But I cannot recognize its 
cogency as a guide to action. Now, I do not want 
to be misunderstood; and I therefore want to 
differentiate my point of view not only from the 
purely humanitarian but also from that of the 
militarists. The militarists' point of view is best 
exemplified by that oft-quoted saying attributed 
to Von Moltke : "Perpetual peace is a dream, and 
not even a beautiful dream at that." To the mili- 
tarist war is therefore beautiful in itself, "the 
finest expression of human personality", — as one 
of our own militarists recently put it. In absolute 
contrast to this stands the purely humanitarian 
point of view which sees in war nothing but 
hideous butchery and criminal waste. 

As distinguished from both of these points of 
view I hold to the belief that war, while abhorrent 
in itself, may nevertheless become an engine of 
human progress. In fact, in the past it frequently 
has been so. Whether or not it can still be so is 
a matter to be carefully inquired into. The 



The War and the Socialists 173 

present war is therefore not merely a matter to 
be abhorred, but also one to be studied and under- 
stood. And studied and understood not merely 
as a scientific problem, but as a matter throbbing 
with the interest of a life-problem awaiting 
solution at our hands. To my mind this world is 
not a place to play in, but a place to work in. And 
it is so peculiarly arranged that we can only 
work to a purpose by making great sacrifices. 
Whether or not the time will ever come when we 
can work without sacrifices is a matter that can- 
not be inquired into here. One thing is certain: 
that time is not here yet. We cannot therefore 
give up the work that we may deem our task here 
because it may involve some sacrifice, even if that 
sacrifice be that of human life and individual 
human happiness. 

I am not a believer in the theory that human 
progress is possible only at the expense of the 
lives or welfare of millions of people, either in 
peace or war. But it is undeniable that in the 
past at least some progress has come through 
wars. The point of view that this war, 
like other wars, might be a necessary engine of 
human progress is, therefore, at least a 
permissible point of view. In fact it is the proper 
point of view as long as it retains the "might" in 



-^ 



174 Socialism and War 

it. And you cannot dispose of it by the purely 
humanitarian argument of the awfulness of war. 
You might as well argue against the continued 
existence of the race because of the awful pains 
of childbirth. We must therefore put our human- 
itarian sentiments aside, and try to grasp the 
meaning of this great historic event as a factor 
of social progress or reaction. Sentiment has of 
course its place in our life, but it should not be 
permitted to run away with our judgment. 

And when you have put aside your sentiment, 
and try to examine the question dispassionately, 
you will find that the question of the justifiability 
of the war is not easily answered. In fact, the 
answer will depend entirely on the views you hold 
with respect to the question of races and national- 
ities and their function as agents of human 
progress. That is, it will depend on whether or 
not you accept the ordinary Nationalist and 
Modern Imperialist position as to the historical 
progress of the Race and the Nation. 

Once you have accepted the Nationalist point 
of view that a nation is an entity used in the his- 
torical process as a medium of progress, neces- 
sarily having interests separate from other nations 
but common to all of its members, his position be- 
comes impregnable. You may still argue with 



The War and the Socialists 175 

him as to what is the wisest policy for a certain 
nation to pursue under certain given con- 
ditions in order to preserve or advance its nation- 
al interests. But you must admit that whenever 
war becomes necessary in order to preserve or 
advance these interests, war should be resorted to. 
The question of war then ceases to be a question 
of principle, and becomes a question of policy. 
War ceases to be a wrong per se. Each war must 
then be judged on its own merits. And in judging 
it you cannot be guided by purely humanitarian 
considerations; nor by considerations of abstract 
principles of justice which are applicable to inter- 
national relations, no more than there are any 
abstract principles of justice between the different 
cpecies of animals or between the animal and the 
vegetable kingdoms. The most just of men and 
the most kind — men who scrupulously refrain 
from doing an injustice to their neighbors and 
who wouldn't **hurt a fly" — ^think nothing of kill- 
ing inoffensive animals in order to obtain the food 
that they think is good for themselves or which 
may simply serve to tickle their palates. We think 
nothing of killing, maiming, enslaving or tortur- 
ing those belonging to a "foreign" species of ani- 
mals whenever such a course is necessary for the 
"progress" of the human race, which we identify 



176 Socialism and War 

with the "progress" of the world. The struggle 
between species, we say, is the law of ani- 
mal existence — the law by which the animal 
world "progresses". 

Similarly, struggle between races and nations is 
the law of existence — the law of "progress" — 
within the human world, according to the nation- 
alist point of view. A nation's duty is only to- 
wards itself. It has no duties towards other na- 
tions ; except such as it voluntarily assumes in 
order to further its own interests, and which cease 
to have any meaning when that interest ceases, 
which is the case in war. Hence the old maxim : 
inter arma silent leges. At most there may be a 
self-imposed duty not to commit wanton, that is 
unnecessary and unprofitable, waste ; a duty which 
may be enforced by a nationalistic Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Humans. The rest is 
mere matter of policy. As to the so-called inferior 
races which cannot offer any effective resistance 
and are therefore at our mercy, it may be good 
economy to follow a wise conservation policy, to 
have "closed seasons" when hunting is forbidden, 
and generally to avoid what Germans call "raub- 
wirtschaft" — that is, that excessive greediness 
which kills the goose that lays the golden eggs. 
A war may therefore be wise or unwise, but never 



The War and the Socialists 177 

right or wrong; never "criminal", except in the 
sense that an action may be "criminally foolish", 
— the "crime" being against your own national 
interest, not against the other nation. In other 
words, a war is "wrong" when it leads to failure, 
does not justify the expense in life and treasure 
necessitated by it; it is "criminally wrong" or 
"foolish" — these being convertible terms — 
when it not only fails of its object but reacts in a 
disastrous way. Success is the supreme and only 
test of the rights and wrongs of war. If you are 
an "enlightened" Nationalist and not an ordinary 
jingo, then you will use the term "success" in the 
broadest sense, taking a "long view" of the sub- 
ject, and counting the cost as well as the results 
achieved. But the question is still one of success. 
These considerations lead to a certain corollary : 
We all know that hindsight is easier than fore- 
sight. It is easy to tell after the event what wars 
were wise and what unwise. But some of these 
wars, even some which may after the event seem 
"criminally foolish", presented quite difficult prob- 
lems before the event, — problems with many 
unknown factors and therefore difficult of solution 
in advance. The "statesmen" who guide the "des- 
tinies of nations" must solve these problems in 
advance of the event. Risks must therefore be 



178 Socialism and War 

taken. Of course, a wise statesman will not take 
any unnecessary risks, nor any big risks when the 
object to be achieved is of small consequence. 
But great objects — "great" from the national- 
istic point of view, which means the achievement 
by the nation of great advantages over other na- 
tions — justify great risks. War is therefore 
justifiable not only as a means to be resorted to in 
exceptional cases but as a policy. 

Take the present war as an instance. And first 
the eastern end of it. Look at it from the point of 
view of the Russian or Servian nationalist. The 
march to the sea is, as I have already explained, 
the necessary concomitant of the fight for inde- 
pendent economic existence on the part of both 
Russia and Servia, particularly the latter, in a 
capitalistic world. But independent economic 
existence is indispensable to independent national 
life generally There can be no political indepen- 
dence without economic independence. Nor can 
there be any independent intellectual and spiritual 
life without independent economic existence. This 
is apparent in the case of Servia. But it is also 
true of Russia, though the idea of Russian depen- 
dence, particularly political dependence, may 
strike us as rather strange on first presentation. 
Russian inefficiency, the "feet of clay" of the great 



The War and the Socialists 179 

giant, even in military matters, is simply one of 
the expressions of Russia's economic backward- 
ness, a backwardness which she cannot overcome 
as long as she is not complete master of her own 
economic destinies, — ^that is as long as she has no 
free and adequate access to the open sea and the 
world beyond. To put it in the phraseology of 
Russo-Serbian nationalistic idealogy : The free 
and untrammelled development of Russian and 
Serbian "Nationality" — with all that that implies 
in the way of national "genius", national "cul- 
ture", etc. — requires "freedom from foreign dom- 
ination." Is it not clear that a war which would be 
the means of achieving such an object is perfectly 
justifiable, and that engaging in a war which 
makes the achievement of such a great national 
object possible is taking a "legitimate risk"? 

Again, look at this war from the Pan-Germanist 
point of view, and you will find that not only the 
war as such is perfectly justifiable, but that every- 
thing Germany has done and would like to do in 
this war is justified by the "higher morality" 
which must guide the conduct of nations, — the 
law of self-interest. In justifying the invasion of 
Belgium, which must be admitted to be "wrong" 
— that is, without provocation on the part of 
Belgium — the Imperial Chancellor said that 



180 Socialism and War 

"necessity knows no law", and this was considered 
as covering the case by all good German national- 
ists. And a German Socialist editor in comment- 
ing upon the same incident said: "The violation 
of Belgium's internationally guaranteed neutral- 
ity was an invasion of a legal right, but morally 
it was justifiable'' — the justification being that 
Germany needed it. 

This may sound cynical to us. But the Socialist 
writer in question deliberately waived all attempts 
to find cheap excuses for this action in the alleged 
actions of other nations, designed to cover the 
naked truth so that it should not shock the Mrs. 
Grundies of international law and morality. He 
proclaims boldly that the entire scheme of inter- 
national law and international regulations is non- 
sensical, for the only law which a nation can rec- 
ognize is the higher law of its own sense of duty, 
— which is, of course, to fulfil its mission, march 
boldly on the road of its manifest destiny, and so 
forth. That this man means what he says, and 
believes that Germany did what was unquestion- 
ably right, is beyond doubt. The argument from 
the Belgian or neutral point of view sounds to him 
as ridiculous as the argument of the anti-vivisec- 
tionist sounds to the scientific worker who believes 
he has a mission and is working for "progress". 



The War and the Socialists 181 

To the "humanitarian" scientist, working for the 
amelioration of the condition of his kind, the inci- 
dental sufferings of the poor "brutes" on whom he 
experiments is at most a disagreeable detail. 

Most people will agree with the scientist. And 
all nationalists must agree with our Pan-German- 
ist. For, once you admit that the progress of 
humanity is effected by means of the development 
of different nations, having different, individual 
and independent cultures; each nation represent- 
ing a certain individual culture which has a char- 
acter of its own and is not merely a part of a com- 
mon or general civilization; that each nation has 
the task and duty of protecting and developing its 
culture ; — then you must admit that the protec- 
tion of your culture can not possibly be left to in- 
ternational law, a code formulated, at best, by 
peoples alien to the spirit and real meaning of 
your national culture, and at worst, by its deadly 
enemies. This is exactly the meaning of the old 
maxim that questions of sovereignty cannot be 
arbitrated. And when you take the logical step 
from the basic nationalist position to that of the 
modern Imperialist position, and assume that your 
culture is the culture par excellence, and that it is 
therefore the mission of your nation to spread 
its culture everywhere in order to help it to the 



182 Socialism and War 

dominance of the world, — you will find that it is 
perfectly justifiable for you to do it by all means 
possible, for you would really be working for the 
improvement of the entire human race, the per- 
fection of the world at large, and the realization 
of the designs of the Creator. 

To the mind of the honest German Imperialist 
of the idealistic turn of mind this is exactly what 
Germany is engaged in doing in this war. Can 
any work be more noble ? And can any such petty 
considerations as the breach of a man-made 
paper-treaty about the neutrality of Belgium, or 
even the complete destruction of the nondescript 
Belgian "nation" — a country and a people mani- 
festly of no "historic destiny" whatsoever — be 
permitted to stand in the way of its accomplish- 
ment? 

And if this reasoning somehow fails to convince 
us, if we still feel that the invasion of Belgium was 
an outrage, and the prospective greatness of Ger- 
man culture leaves us unmoved, it can only be due 
to the fact that we do not accept the Pan-Ger- 
man's premise, and not because there is any flaw 
in his reasoning. Now, our non-acceptance of the 
German nationalistic premise may be due to one 
of two reasons : Either we reject the entire 
Race-National theory; or we simply deny the as- 



The War and the Socialists 183 

sertion that the German race or nation is the 
chosen one. The latter is the position of the non- 
German nationalists. Their reasoning is exactly 
that of the German nationalists, except that where 
the latter says "German" they say "French" or 
"English" or some other national name. Of 
course, viewed from the outside it seems utterly 
absurd for one set of nationalists to complain of 
the "utter disregard of the rights of other na- 
tions" by another set of nationalists, since dis- 
regard of the rights of other nations is of 
the essence of nationalism; and the complain- 
ing nationalists would unhesitatingly approve of 
the acts complained of if they were committed by 
or in the interests of their own nation. But it is 
of the very essence of nationalism that its de- 
votees cannot look at things from any outside, or 
extra-national point of view. As a German writer 
recently put it : Nationalism is a disease, the 
principle symptom of which is the inability to see 
the other man's point of view. 

The position of the Socialists is totally different 
from the position of the nationalists. We reject 
entirely the nationalist ideas with respect to the 
role of races and nations in the development of the 
human species and its civilization and culture. 
But before proceeding to discuss what I consider 



184 Socialism and War 

to be the Socialist view of the subject, we must 
dwell a while longer on the nationalist point of 
view, — ^which I believe to be the general bour- 
geois point of view. 

In trying to get at the point of view of those 
engaged in the present war, I presented what I 
believe to be the extreme expression of militant 
nationalism, the point of view of the Pan-German- 
ist, which is, however, merely typical of the point 
of view of modern Imperialism. This is the atti- 
tude of aggressive nationalism. But not all na- 
tionalists are aggressive. Some of them are 
peace-loving, and abhor war and its horrors. 
That does not mean, however, that the peace-lov- 
ing nationalists repudiate the basic principles of 
the bellicose nationalists as to the essential unity 
of interest of all those belonging to one nation 
against the rest of the world, which interest is to 
be protected at all hazards and by all means. It 
simply means that some nationalists differ from 
others as to what are the best means of preserv- 
ing or promoting the national interest, which both 
agree to be paramount to any other consideration. 
When an English pacifist says he is opposed to the 
present war, he does not mean to intimate that he 
is indifferent to England's national interests. 
What he says, in effect, is that England's interests 



The War and the Socialists 185 

would have been better preserved if she had 
stayed out of this war ; that it did not pay her to 
go into this war. Your confirmed pacifist is 
nevertheless a good patriot and wants his country 
to win whenever it does engage in war, as it could 
not be to its interest to lose in war. The task of 
the bourgeois pacifist is therefore simple: As 
long as there is no war he works for peace, and 
after the war has broken out he works for its 
speedy termination. But so long as the war con- 
tinues he "does his duty by his country" by rang- 
ing himself on the side of his nation and helping 
it to win. And even while working for the term- 
ination of the war he does his work with a view to 
his country's interest, and with a view to help it 
conclude a peace wih honor and profit. 

The question of justice to other nations — not 
as a policy that pays, but as a right — is no more 
part of the peace- loving patriot's creed than it is 
of the militarist's. For the simple reason that 
according to good nationalistic-patriotic doctrine 
the interests of one's own country or nation are 
the Supreme Good, and therefore the highest jus- 
tice. This is well expressed in the famous dictum, 
which is taught to our children in the public 
schools in this non-militarist nation as the highest 
expression of noble sentiment : "My country 



186 Socialism and War 

may it ever be right, but right or wrong, my 
country /" 

Now, what is the position of the Socialists on 
this fundamental question of nationalism-patriot- 
ism? I said a while ago that the Socialists reject 
the nationalist's point of view in toto. I must say- 
now that that was an over-statement, if taken 
literally at least. What I meant to say was not 
that they actually, in point of fact do so, but 
merely that they ought to do so if they followed 
out logically and to the uttermost consequences 
what I beileve to be the true fundamentals of the 
Socialist philosophy. And I may add that until 
this war broke out many, if not most, people 
believed that what I consider to be the proper 
Socialist position was their actual position. It is 
largely due to this belief, equally prevalent among 
Socialists and non-Socialists, that there was a 
general expectation that the Socialists would pre- 
vent the war by refusing to engage in it. And it 
is largely due to this belief, that the seeming readi- 
ness with which the European Socialists entered 
into this war was felt to be a base betrayal of 
principle. 

A careful examination, however, of the litera- 
ture of the subject will prove conclusively that 
whatever may be the offense of the European 



The War and the Socialists 187 

Socialists, or some of them, in failing to draw the 
proper conclusions from the fundamental ideas 
underlying their philosophy, they have not vio- 
lated any prescribed rules of conduct, except one 
which will be discussed further below. The truth 
is that neither on the subject of nationalism nor 
on that of war and peace were there any estab- 
lished doctrines or any well-recognized canons of 
conduct. The views of many of the leading 
Socialists on this subject are utterly irreconcila- 
ble. But what is worse: most leading Socialists 
never clearly defined their position at all, and no 
Socialist congress ever attempted to deal with the 
subject adequately. 

There is, indeed, an impression current that ab- 
solute opposition to war, at all times and under all 
circumstances, is one of the cardinal principles of 
Socialism. And it must be conceded that "the 
man in the street" was absolutely justified in his 
assumption that absolute pacifism was one of the 
chief tenets of Socialism, as their most important 
leaders were untiring workers in the cause of 
peace and their popular orators, when voicing 
their opposition to war, were not always careful 
to point out the distinction between opposition to 
war under certain given conditions and absolute 
opposition to it under all and any circumstances. 



188 Socialism and War 

There can be no doubt, however, that the 
Socialists, particularly those of the Marxian 
School, the predominant school among present- 
day Socialists, are not absolute pacifists. Indeed, 
the cast of mind and mode of thought which would 
lead to absolute pacifism is utterly alien to them. 
They are not sentimentalists, and therefore could 
not be opposed to war on purely sentimental 
grounds. And they are rather close students of 
history, and are therefore aware of the important 
role of war in the past, a part which they could not 
always deprecate in view of the revolutionary 
character of their own doctrine. That force and 
bloodshed are not, as such, repugnant to the spirit 
of their teachings is well known. Marx himself 
assigned to force a very important place in the 
historical process. And most Socialists are enthu- 
siastic admirers of the French Revolution and the 
Paris Commune, notwithstanding their bloodshed. 
It is also well known that these sympathies are 
not limited to internal "revolutions", but extend 
to wars proper whenever they have a "revolu- 
tionary" or progressive character, such as the 
wars of the French Revolution and the American 
Civil War. In fact they consider war a legitimate 
and sometimes unavoidable accompaniment of the 
revolution which they preach and advocate. 



The War and the Socialists 189 

Furthermore, their approval of war is not nec- 
essarily limited to revolutionary wars properly so- 
called, but applies to all wars which they consider 
in the line of human progress. Marx is in this re- 
spect typical of the revolutionary Socialists gener- 
ally. To him the question of war and peace was 
never an abstract question to be decided on ab- 
stract principles, but a question of policy to be de- 
cided according to the circumstances of each case. 
The causes which brought about the war, the pur- 
poses for which it was carried on, and the results 
which were likely to follow from it, were the de- 
termining considerations when he was called upon 
to judge of any war. Was the war making for hu- 
man progress ? If so, he was for it ; if not, he was 
against it. And he not only approved of some 
wars when they came, but actually did all he could 
to bring at least one of them about. 

His relation to the Crimean War is character- 
istic of his general attitude on the subject. As a 
result of the general political situation in Europe 
at that time, and the part which Russia played in 
the suppression of the revolts of 1848, Marx came 
to the conclusion that a war against Russia and a 
defeat of Russia by the western European powers 
was absolutely necessary in the interest of a demo- 
cratic reorganization of Europe. When, there- 



190 Socialism and War 

fore, Russia picked a quarrel with Turkey in 1853 
and marched her troops in what was then known 
as the Danube Principalities, now Roumania, he 
demanded that England intervene in the war. 
England was then in her pacific era. Her most 
representative ideologist in the political arena was 
John Bright. Like the true representative of tex- 
tiles and Manchesterism that he was, Mr. John 
Bright used his great eloquence for the propa- 
ganda of peace and profits. To offset the influence 
of Manchesterian pacifism Marx endeavored to 
arouse the English working-men to a support of 
his war-policy. And when the revolutionary 
working-men of England, under the leadership of 
the old Chartists, responded to the call, he ex-, 
pressed his exultation in a letter published in the 
New York Tribune of July 25, 1853, in which he 
says : 

"While the English Queen is, at this moment, 
feasting Russian Princesses ; while an enlightened 
English aristocracy and bourgeoisie lie prostrate 
before the barbarian Autocrat, — the English 
proletariat alone protests against the impotency 
and degradation of the ruling classes. On the 7th 
of July the Manchester School held a great Peace 
meeting in the Odd Fellows* Hall, at Halifax. 
Crossley, M. P. for Halifax, and all the other 



The War and the Socialists 191 

'great men' of the School had especially flocked 
to the meeting from Town'. The hall was crowd- 
ed and many thousands could obtain no admit- 
tance. Ernst Jones was at the time at Durham. 
The Chartists of Halifax summoned him by elec- 
tric telegraph, and he appeared just in time for 
the meeting. Already the gentlemen of the Man- 
chester School believed they would carry their 
resolution, and would be able to bring home the 
support of the manufacturing districts to their 
good Aberdeen, when Ernst Jones rose and put in 
an amendment pledging the people to war, and de- 
claring that before liberty was established peace 
-z.as a crime. There ensued a most violent dis- 
cussion, but the amendment of Ernst Jones was 
carried by an immense majority." 

Of course, Marx did not expect for a moment 
that England would, if she went to war with 
Russia, carry on a revolutionary war, in the So- 
cialist sense of the word. He knew full well that if 
he succeeded in getting England to intervene in 
this war, she would do so for the benefit and in 
the interest of her bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, he 
was in favor of that war, because in his opinion, it 
was in line with general political and economic 
progress, and therefore in the interest of the 
working class. We may therefore consider as 



192 Socialism and War 

conclusively established, that, far from being ab- 
solute opponents of all wars, Socialists are in 
favor of all revolutionary wars, and also of those 
wars whose necessary net result would be a 
strengthening of the forces making for progress, 
and, therefore, in the interests of the working 
class. At least that was the position of Socialists 
fifty or sixty years ago. 

Since then the position of Socialists on the sub- 
ject of war has undergone a great change. The 
vast majority of Socialists of the present genera- 
tion have completely abandoned the bellicoseness 
of Marx even against Russia and have become 
thorough pacifists. This is not due however to 
any change of opinion on the matter of principle 
involved, but to a change of the political condi- 
tions of Europe, which lead the Socialists to be- 
lieve that the interests of human progress gene- 
rally, and of the fight of the working class for its 
emancipation in particular, require continued 
peace as a policy. The change of conditions which 
led to the adoption of a general peace policy by the 
Socialists may be summarized as follows : 

At the time Marx summoned Western Europe 
to a crusade against Russia, the latter was still a 
medieval state, whose great military strength and 
consequent political preponderance in Europe 



The War and the Socialists 193 

were a source of great danger to the bourgeois- 
democratic development of Western civilization. 
It should be remembered that at that time Russia 
had neither an industrial bourgeoisie nor a mo- 
dern working class. Her agrarian economy was 
based on a polity of personal servitude. Her 
government, which was sometime afterward de- 
scribed as "a despotism tempered by assassina- 
tion" had at that time not developed as yet its 
"tempering" element, and was therefore a despot- 
ism pure and unalloyed. Moreover, it was a 
despotism of an aggressive kind, supporting by its 
military power every despot in Christendom. In 
Western Europe the bourgeoisie was then just 
getting on its feet, so to say, and if not interfered 
with from without was likely to gain the upper 
hand over the absolute-feudalist combination 
which opposed it. It had already gotten the upper 
hand in England, and to a considerable extent in 
France. The fight in Germany seemed to depend 
largely on whether the Western powers or Russia 
would lead the Concert of Europe. The bour- 
geoisie which was fighting the old feudal-abso- 
lutist order was in a revolutionary frame of mind, 
fighting for democratic political institutions. The 
working class had not yet achieved its majority, 
and had not, as yet, developed any political power 



194 Socialism and War 

of its own, — its future, for the moment at least, 
hanging on the fortunes of the bourgeoisie. 

Under these circumstances it seemed the imper- 
ative duty of the hour to crush the reactionary- 
power in the East of Europe in order to permit 
the orderly development of Europe towards in- 
dustrialism and political 'democracy, — the fere- 
requisite to the emancipation of the working class 
and the inauguration of economic freedom and 
equality. Hence Marx's call to arms. 

But during the half-century that has elapsed 
between the Crimean and the Russo-Japanese 
Wars all this changed. To begin with, the Russia 
of the Twentieth Century is not the Russia of the 
middle of the Nineteenth, either internally or as 
to her position as a world-power. The oversha- 
dowing predominance of Russia in European af- 
fairs which followed the Napoleonic Wars was 
rudely shaken in the Crimean War, and was com- 
pletely destroyed by the Russo-Japanese War. 
At the same time she has been completely revo- 
lutionized internally. The freeing of the Serfs, 
which was one of the results of the defeat which 
she suffered in the Crimean War, set Russia de- 
finitely and irrevocably on the high-road of cap- 
italist industrial development which trans- 
formed the stagnant medieval state of 1853 into 



The War and the Socialists 195 

a rapidly-developing modern state, with a strong 
bourgeoisie and a revolutionary working class. 
Not only was the "tempering" influence of assas- 
sination introduced into her political system dur- 
ing the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, 
but a real revolution occurred early in the Twen- 
tieth. This revolution, although it failed of ac- 
complishing its entire purpose, has nevertheless 
proved two things: First, that the old poli- 
tical order is as dead in Russia as is the old econ- 
omic order. And second, that the Russian people 
can very well take care of themselves without any 
outside assistance. Russia not only ceased to be 
a menace to the democratic development of the rest 
of Europe, but her own absolutism, hard-pressed, 
is in need of outside help ; while large sections of 
her people are among the foremost carriers of 
democratic ideals and disseminators of revo- 
lutionary principles the world over. 

At the same time Western Europe has been 
changing too, — changing in the opposite direction. 
The bourgeoisie of Western Europe has succeeded 
in the years following the Crimean War in estab- 
lishing its supremacy. But this has been accom- 
panied by a complete abandonment of its revolu- 
tionary ideals, and a willingness to betray its dem- 
ocratic principles whenever such a course seemed 



196 Socialism and War 

necessary in order to achieve or maintain that 
supremacy. This new spirit which has come over 
the bourgeosie manifests itself particularly in 
Germany, which, as I have already pointed out, 
passed from one warlike period into another with- 
out the intervening peaceful period under the 
dominance of bourgeois-democratic ideas. The 
German bourgeoisie, coming upon the historic 
stage later than its more western neighbors, 
shamefully capitulated before autocracy and com- 
promised with the remnants of feudalism in order 
to be in a better position to fight its capitalistic 
rivals of other countries on the one hand and the 
working class of its own country on the other. 
The time when the bourgeoisie could go to war for 
liberty and progress is past, never to return. 

The guardianship of democratic ideas and ideals 
has passed to the working class, the only social 
class which seems to have an abiding interest in 
their realization and preservation. But while this 
class has grown immensely in power since the 
days of the Crimean War, it is still very far from 
controlling the politics of any country, and is 
therefore not in any position to impose its policies 
at home even, where it is stronger, — let alone im- 
posing them on any foreign nation. Besides, this 
class, or at least its intellectual leaders, have 



The War and the Socialists 197 

heeded the lesson of history, which is to the effect 
that so-called "wars of liberation" are a snare and 
a delusion. If the elements of progress working 
for the reformation of a people's institutions are 
absent from its life, all attempts to reform or re- 
volutionize its institutions by the use of force 
from without will prove futile. Each people must 
be left to itself, to work out its own salvation as 
best it can. 

The conditions for a war in the interest of 
progress are therefore entirely absent from our 
modern life, and the chances of their ever recur- 
ring are so remote as to be negligible. Hence the 
pacific mood of the present-day Socialists. 

But this pacifism evidently does not exhaust the 
subject. Not being the result of principle, but 
merely a matter of policy, dictated by conditions, 
it leaves open a number of very important quest- 
ions. To begin with, the changes which I have 
described as having taken place since the days 
when Marx called for a crusade against Russia 
militate only against any aggressive warlike pol- 
icy on the part of Socialists. They should not 
desire any war. But what should they do when 
they are confronted with the actual fact of war? 
Is there anything in their principles which pro- 
hibits them from following their natural im- 



198 Socialism and War 

pulses and fighting for their nation? Is a Socialist 
debarred from being a patriot? And if so, on 
what principle? This question becomes even 
more complicated when the socialist happens to 
belong to a nation which is being attacked by an- 
other nation. In such a case the requirements of 
justice seem to unite with the natural impulse in 
urging the Socialist to a defense of "home and 
country". How should a Socialist act in such an 
emergency? Are there any distinctively Socialist 
principles covering the subject, upon which a 
Socialist rule of action could be based? 

Of all these perplexing questions only one can 
be answered definitely: It is the consensus of 
opinion of all Socialists, or at least was until the 
outbreak of the present war, that a Socialist could 
not be a "patriot" in the ordinary sense of the 
word, that he could not subscribe to the principle 
of "my country, right or wrong". The opposition 
to this principle proceeded, however, not from any 
radical dissent from the nationalist position on the 
role of nationalities as a cultural factor, but from 
a loftier moral sense than that of the ordinary 
patriot. It simply amounted to a declaration that 
a Socialist can engage only in a "just war", — 
"tempering patriotism with justice", so to say. 
But what is a just war? 



The War and the Socialists 199 

Proceeding upon the assumption that no war 
could now be carried on in the interests of prog- 
ress, and thtat the engaging in war aggressively 
is therefore necessarily wrong, August Bebel, the 
great German Socialist leader, announced the true 
rule to be that all wars of aggression are unjust, 
while all defensive wars are just. Socialists 
should refuse to join in the first, but should do 
their duty cheerfully for "home and country" 
whenever these are attacked. This rule of conduct 
was probably the most generally accepted among 
Socialists up to the outbreak of the present war. 
But it by no means received their unanimous ap- 
probation. Among those who were opposed to it 
was Karl Kautsky, the leading theoretical writer 
of the international Socialist movement of the pre- 
sent day. At the Congress of the German Social- 
ist Party held at Essen in 1907, Bebel and Kautsky 
debated this subject at some length. Kautsky's 
main objection to the rule advocated by Bebel 
was that it was not a safe guide to go by, in prac- 
tice, as a government could easily fool its socialists 
into participating in a war of aggression by mak- 
ing it appear to be a purely defensive war. To 
which Bebel retorted that if the working class and 
its leaders can be fooled in a matter like that no 
rule could save them from error. 



200 Socialism and War 

The events of August, 1914, demonstrated that 
Bebel's neatly turned oratorial phrase was no ade- 
quate answer to Kautsky's objection. Although 
the element of "fooling" was perhaps unduly em- 
phasized by Kautsky. The real trouble lies much 
deeper. The fact is that it is very often really im- 
possible to tell, even with the knowledge of all the 
facts, and with perfect good faith, as to who is the 
real aggressor in a given war. But even if we 
should always be able unerringly, and at the very 
outbreak of the war, to detect the aggressor, the 
distinction between aggressive and defensive wars 
is entirely too technical and formal, and can- 
not be relied upon always to conform to the de- 
mands of that higher morality which is supposed 
to distinguish the action of the Socialist from that 
of the ordinary patriot. 

Let me illustrate: In 1911 Italy declared war 
on Turkey for the purpose of despoiling her of 
Tripoli. Here was a clear case of aggression — 
aggression for the purpose of robbery. Accord- 
ing to the rule laid down by Bebel the duty of the 
Socialists in the two countries at war was clear : 
The Italian Socialists were in duty bound to op- 
pose the war, while the Turkish Socialists were 
bound to defend their country against Italian ag- 
gression. Now suppose that a year or two after 



The War and the Socialists 201 

the conclusion of the war, — Italy having success- 
fully carried off the prize which was the object of 
the war — a turn in the international situation 
should make it seem likely that Turkey could re- 
gain the lost province by making war on Italy, and 
that Turkey should grasp at the opportunity. 
What would then be the duty of the Socialists? If 
the rule were strictly adhered to, the Italian Socia- 
lists would now be bound to go to war in order to 
"defend" their country, — defend it in the posses- 
sion of the ill-gotten gains of the war which only 
a short while ago it was their duty to oppose. Evi- 
dently the fact that a war is a "defensive" one does 
not necessarily mean that it is a just one. 

It would seem that while Bebel permitted just- 
ice to "temper" his patriotism when his country 
was about to commit an act of injustice, his patri- 
otism got the better of his sense of justice when 
his country's misdeeds brought forth the inevit- 
able consequences and her "safety" was threat- 
ened. 

The reason for this rather contradictory posi- 
tion with respect to the relation of justice to "pa- 
triotic duty" is to be found in the fact that the 
basis of BebeFs position, the point of departure 
from which the train of his thoughts on this sub- 



202 Socialism and War 

ject starts, is the bourgeois theory of nationality. 
In common with the ordinary bourgeois national- 
ists Bebel believed that the "nation" was not 
merely an incident of historical evolution, but that 
each nation was a vessel especially designed for 
the purpose of carrying a certain brand of "cul- 
ture" necessary for human progress, which cul- 
ture would be lost to humanity if the nation ceased 
to exist or its independence were destroyed. He re- 
jected the modern outgrowth of nationalist theory 
according to which each nation is to strive for 
world-dominion, but he believed that each nation 
was the carrier of a national culture and repre- 
sented an entity which must be preserved under all 
circumstances. Granting his premises, his con- 
clusion is perfectly correct : The fact that a nation 
may be wrong in a certain quarrel with another 
nation is certainly no adequate reason for permit- 
ting such an important factor of progress to 
perish or even its influence to be diminished. 

And in so far as there was any Socialist theory 
at all on the subject it granted the nationalistic 
premises, at least in the Bebel formulation. It is 
true that there were heard some dissenting 
voices, but they were neither numerous nor very 
authoritative ; for they usually lost themselves in 
generalities — and negative generalities at that — 



The War and the Socialists 203 

without attempting to build up a solid theoretical 
structure which could replace the well-constructed 
nationalist theory. That does not mean that 
no work whatever had been done towards building 
up such a theory. On the contrary, as I shall 
endeavor to prove in my next lecture, the found- 
ations for such a theory were laid long ago by the 
founders of what we Socialists are pleased to call 
"Scientific Socialism", and the materials for the 
entire structure were there, but they were in frag- 
mentary form scattered throughout the length 
and breadth of the literature of Socialism, and had 
never been used to actually build the edifice. 

In the debate between Bebel and Kautsky at the 
Essen Congress which I have already adverted to, 
Kautsky indicated the lines along which such a 
theory is to be constructed, when he insisted that 
the needs of the working class should be the only 
guide for Socialists to follow in matters of war 
and peace. By this declaration Kautsky took a 
position squarely in opposition to all nationalistic 
theories, including the pacific nationalism of 
Bebel. The logical implications of this declara- 
tion were that the interests of the working class 
may sometimes, at least, become fundamentally 
antagonistic to those of the "nation," and that in 
such an event the interests of the working class 



204 Socialism and War 

should take precedence. In other words, that So- 
cialists are bound to go to war, if at all, only in 
defence of the interests of the working class, and 
not in the interests of their "nation." 

Unfortunately, Kautsky merely indicated but 
never elaborated his Socialist theory of peace and 
war, and never developed a Socialist theory on the 
subject of race and nation, which is the only basis 
upon which a Socialist theory of peace and war 
can securely rest. 

Another attempt to lay down a Socialist rule 
of action on the subject of war which should be 
fundamentally different from the nationalistic 
position on the subject, is contained in the con- 
cluding clause of the resolution adopted by the 
International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart 
(1907) and incorporated in the resolutions adop- 
ted at the International Socialist Congress at 
Copenhagen (1910) and at the Extraordinary In- 
ternational Socialist Congress at Basle (1912). 
This clause reads as follows ; 

"In the event that war should break notwith- 
standing the efforts of the Socialists to prevent it, 
then it becomes the duty of the Socialists to work 
for its speedy termination, and to use all the power 
at their command, utilizing the political and eco- 
nomic crises produced by the war, in an effort to 



The War and the Socialists 205 

arouse the discontent of the people so as to hasten 
the abolition of the rule of the capitalist class" 

This resolution contains the same unpatriotic 
implications as the Kautsky declaration, which, by 
the way, was made only a few weeks after the 
adoption of this resolution at the Stuttgart Con- 
gress. The same emphasis on the working class 
interest; and the same utter disregard for the 
defence of nation and country. Instead of being 
in duty bound to come to the defence of his 
country, it is made the paramount duty of the 
Socialist to exert himself on behalf of the interests 
of the working class in the abolition of capitalist 
class rule. Instead of uniting with the other classes 
of his nation in defence of his country, he is to 
arouse the discontent of the people, presumably 
irrespective of what the consequences might be 
as to the "defence". This resolution has the ad- 
vantage over the Kautsky declaration in that it 
prescribes a definite course of action, instead of 
merely laying down a principle the application of 
which might depend upon the interpretation of 
what is meant by "the interest of the working 
class." But it shares with the Kautsky declaration 
the unfortunate situation of not having any solid, 
well-recognized theoretical position on the under- 
lying subject of race and nationality. Not being 



206 Socialism and War 

founded on any such fully elaborated and well- 
recognized theory, and having among its sponsors 
such men as Bebel, who stood firmly on the basic 
nationalistic principle, it was liable either to be 
misinterpreted or to be regarded merely as 
a sop thrown out to Gustave Herve and other 
anti-patriots, as a compromise, and having really 
no organic connection with the general position 
of the Socialists on the subject. 

Such was the condition of Socialist theory at the 
outbreak of the great European conflict. Now let 
us turn for a moment to the practice. A survey 
of the actions of the European Socialists immedi- 
ately prior to and since the beginning of the war 
will show conclusively that with few exceptions, 
they have all acted on the principle of nationalism, 
— a pacific nationalism, but nationalism neverthe- 
less. By this I do not mean to intimate that I dis- 
approve equally of all the Socialists who went into 
this war. I will anticipate my next lecture here 
sufficiently to say that the action of some of the 
Socialists who went into this war might be 
justified on correct Socialist principle. Only it 
is my belief that as a matter of fact they were not 
guided in so doing by correct Socialist principle, 
but by ordinary bourgeois-nationalistic consider- 
ations. 



The War and the Socialists 207 

Let me illustrate what I mean, and at the same 
time offer proof of my assertion. In my opinion 
the positions of the Socialists in Germany and Bel- 
gium, respectively, were fundamentally different 
from one another, so that while the action of the 
German Socialists was utterly indefensible from 
what I consider to be the Socialist point of view, 
the action of the Belgian Socialists in coming to 
the defense of their country was perfectly consist- 
ent with Socialist principle. And yet, I cannot 
acquit the Belgian Socialists, or at least some of 
them, of the charge of having acted on non-Social- 
ist principles in what they did. And for the fol- 
lowing reason: During his stay in this country 
Vandervelde was asked what he thought of the 
conduct of the German Socialists. To which he 
replied substantially as follows : We (that is the 
Belgian Socialists) have no complaints to make 
against the German socialists. Until the outbreak 
of hostilities they did all they could to prevent the 
war; and after the outbreak of hostilities they 
were in a very difficult position, with Republican 
France on one front and the Czar of Russia on the 
other, and had we been in their position we would 
have in all probability acted the way they did. As 
we have no right to assume that Vandervelde 
would have made so serious a statement merely 



208 Socialism and War 

out of international courtesy, we must adjudge 
him to be particeps criminis with the German 
Socialists in whatever they did, as an eccessory 
after the fact, — ^which can only be due to a com- 
munity of views. 

And here I must tarry a while in order to 
dispose of a disturbing element in the situation — 
the Russian Czar, You will have noticed that 
Vandervelde refers to the Russian Czar as the jus- 
tification or excuse for the German Socialists' con- 
duct in supporting the German Government at 
the outbreak of the war. The German Socialists 
themselves asserted at the beginning of the 
war that the Czar was the real reason for their 
conduct with respect to the war, and they have 
called upon the shades of Marx and Engels to 
justify their action. I must say frankly that this 
attempt to make the poor Czar the scapegoat for 
the sins of the German Socialists is extremely dis- 
ingenuous and not in accord with the known facts 
of the case; and the appeal to Marx and Engels 
smacks somewhat of the hypocritical, at least in 
the mouth of some of those making it. 

I have already pointed out that the cir- 
cumstances under which Marx called upon West- 
ern Europe to war on Russia were entirely dif- 
ferent from those which prevailed at the outbreak 



The War and the Socialigts 209 

of the present war. I may add here that these dif- 
ferences had been repeatedly pointed out long be- 
fore the present crisis arose and were well-known 
to all Socialists, particularly to German Socialists. 
Those German Socialists, therefore, who had al- 
ways been upholders of the Marxian theories, 
doctrines, and policies refused to be caught by this 
bait thrown out by the German Government and 
warned their comrades against it. So the Vor- 
waerts, the central organ of the German Socialist 
Party and for years the rallying point of what 
might be considered the simon-pure Marxists in 
Germany, published a leading article on August 
3rd, only one day before the fateful session of the 
Reichstag when the Socialist Parliamentary group 
joined in voting the war credits, protesting 
most emphatically against the attempt to use the 
Czar as an excuse for drawing the German work- 
ing class into this war. As a result, we were there- 
fore confronted with the curious spectacle of the 
alleged authority of Marx and Engels in favor of 
the war being invoked by that portion of the So- 
cialist movement in Germany which ordinarily 
cared least about the opinions and example of the 
"revolutionary fathers", and being denied by the 
most revolutionary and consistently Marxist por- 
tion of that movement. This alone should be suf- 



210 Socialism and War 

ficient to prove the vulnerability of the Czar as a 
shield for Socialist warlike operations. 

But there is more direct proof of the fact 
that the Czar had practically nothing to do with 
the conduct of the German Socialists in the present 
war. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. 
Had the German Socialists gone into this war 
because it was, or they thought that it was, a war 
against Czarism, they would have stayed in it 
only as long as the idea that this was a war pri- 
marily against Russian Czarism was actually 
entertained by them. Their support of the govern- 
ment would of necessity have been with- 
drawn the moment it became evident that this 
war was directed primarily against the Western 
Powers. But the pretense that this was a war 
mainly against Russia did not last longer than 
Jonah's leaf. Not only in the purely military 
operations, but in the avowed purposes of the war 
the German Government and the German Press, 
as well as all other organs of public opinion, set 
their face westward practically from the second 
week of the war. And yet the Socialists stayed on. 
After the first excitement was over, the entire 
bourgeois and governmental press declared in one 
voice that England was the enemy. Russia was 
practically forgotten. And yet the Socialists not 



The War and the Socialists 211 

only stayed on, but actually joined the chorus of 
execration against England and announced their 
intention of staying in the war until this mortal 
enemy was completely vanquished. 

It is therefore clear beyond peradventure of a 
doubt that the Russian Czar was not a determin- 
ing factor in the support which the German Social- 
ists have given to this war. By this I do not mean 
to say that a few individuals may not have gone in- 
to this war solely on account of the Russian Czar. 
But such individuals must have been very few, 
and they must have pulled out as soon as the true 
character of the war became apparent. Nor do I 
mean to say that the vast majority of German 
Socialists who stayed on, warring as enthusiast- 
ically against England as they did against Russia, 
were necessarily hypocrites when they declared, at 
the beginning of the war, that the Czar was the 
cause of their patriotism. That there were some 
hypocrites at work may be — probably is — ^the 
fact. But the great bulk of them were certainly 
sincere in their belief, as great masses always are. 
The explanation is simple enough, — although ex- 
tremely interesting to the investigator of the re- 
lations existing between economics, psychology, 
and ideology: They went into this war for the 
same reason that other Germans went into it, just 



212 Socialism and War 

because they felt and thought like Germans. Being 
also Socialists in their secondary character they 
honestly tried to square their Nationalism with 
their Socialism, and for a while at least were able 
to do so, thanks to the Czar. Some may still cling 
to him in a desperate effort to save their Socialist 
conscience. When this becomes impossible by the 
trend of events, which accentuate with ever-grow- 
ing decisiveness the Imperialistic and anti-English 
character of the war, they will begin to revise 
their Socialism so as to bring it into grater con- 
formity with their Nationalism. The process has 
already begun; when and where it will end it is 
difficult now to foretell. 



VI. 

SOCIALIST VS. BOURGEOIS 

THEORIES. 

I STATED in my last lecture that, rightly under- 
stood, the basic theories of Socialism contain 
within themselves a theory of race and national- 
ity, and therefore a theory of peace and war, 
which is totally different from and opposed to the 
current bourgeois or nationalistic theories on the 
same subject. And at the same time I stated that 
such theory had never been clearly elaborated, nor 
any definite rules of conduct based thereon estab- 
lished, and that when the war came the vast ma- 
jority of Socialists acted not on any Socialist the- 
ory but on the current nationalistic theory just as 
if there had been no Socialist theory. It would 
seem, on the one hand, somewhat presumptuous in 
one man to assert that he is in possession of the 
true interpretation of the principles of Socialism, 
which escaped the notice of the vast ma- 
jority of Socialists and their intellectual leaders. 



214 Socialism and War 

even if he should admit a few other individuals 
into a sort of qualified partnership with himself 
in the possession of this precious truth. On the 
other hand, such a truth would of necessity seem 
to be of rather doubtful character : a truth that is 
neither clearly understood nor acted upon is cer- 
tainly far from being a living truth, the kind of 
truth worthy of the name. 

In answer to the first objection to the acceptance 
of what I have stated I will say that truth and the 
knowledge of truth — which is really one and the 
same thing, as truth only lives by its recognition 
and has no existence outside of it — grow as part 
of the general development of the human species 
and their growth depends entirely on the circum- 
stances and conditions of that development. Not 
only are new ideas, new modes of thought — ^what 
we call new truths — ^the result of new social de- 
velopments; but all the implications of radically 
new modes of thought only come to the surface, at 
least so as to become generally cognizable, with 
the development of particular conditions and the 
occurence of the particular facts of life to which 
they are to be applied and which serve to accen- 
tuate them. The Socialist theories of race and 
nationality, war and peace, very naturally only 
developed slowly as the conditions of life called for 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 215 

their application, except perhaps in the minds of 
some theoreticians and there only fragmentarily. 
The full scope and import of these theories can 
only be studied and understood now, under the 
enlightening influence of the present war. And 
there can be no doubt but that the present war 
will bring forth an enormous amount of Socialist 
literature which will serve to bring this phase of 
Socialist theory into clear relief, — ^these lectures 
being part of a general effort now undoubtedly 
making in all parts of the world. 

As to the second objection, I may say that I can 
safely take my appeal from formal statements and 
resolutions to the general, I might almost say 
instinctive belief, current everywhere before the 
war, among Socialists and non-Socialists alike, 
that the Socialists would somehow or other prevent 
the war, or at least would not willingly participate 
in it. This almost universal expectation — and the 
feeling of surprise, disappointment and indigna- 
tion which followed its failure of realization — 
must have had some basis of fact, some uncon- 
scious or half -conscious evaluation of the Socialist 
movement and its theory which was dimly present 
in the minds of all, even though it never reached 
the stage of full articulation. There must have 
been something which made the world put a dif- 



216 Socialism and War 

ferent valuation on the Socialist declarations in 
favor of peace, from the valuation it placed on 
similar declarations emanating from the bourgeois 
pacifists. It is this which gives point to the sneers 
levelled at the Socialists shooting at their "com- 
rades" while no one would think of sneering at the 
Christians for shooting at their "brothers in 
Christ" and getting "infidels" to help them in the 
shooting. By an almost universal consensus of 
opinion the Socialists' professions of peace were 
regarded as something more than a mere pious 
wish or an outward coat of veneer, meant only for 
dress-parade and of no account in the actual "busi- 
ness of life." They were supposed to mean real 
business, to be an integral part of the actuality of 
the Socialist labor movement. 

|J[he basis of this universal belief in the sincerity 
and the actuality-quality of the Socialist peace pro- 
gram is to be found in the Class Struggle which is 
both the theory and the practice of the modern 
labor movement. The theory of the class struggle 
is in absolute and irreconcilable opposition to the 
nationalistic theory of patriotism, — ^while its 
practice makes the practice of the patriotic virtues 
utterly impossible^ 

The theory of the Class Struggle is not merely 
a statement of fact as to the division of our pre- 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 217 

sent society into hostile classes struggling with 
one another for the good things in life and for the 
control of the institutions of organized society 
which control the distribution of these things. It 
is primarily a historical theory, an attempt to 
explain the progress of mankind and the 
means whereby this progress is brought about. 
As such it denies the role ascribed to race and na- 
tionality as factors of human progress by the na- 
tionalistic theory, and considers these entities 
mere incidents in the evolution of mankind, 
brought forth at a certain stage of this evolution 
bound to disappear with it. 

Briefly stated, the position of those who believe 
in the Class-struggle theory of progress — which 
is my position, and, I believe, the position of all 
true Socialists — is this: In the first place, there 
is no such a thing as a Superior or an Inferior 
race. All races are alike, with respect to their 
essential qualities, — that is in their capability to 
develop along those lines that we call civilization. 
Different races may at any given time be at dif- 
ferent stages of this development, but they are all 
equally capable of achieving the highest point of 
this process of evolution. In other words the dif- 
ferences between them are of the degree of 
development and not those of essential kind or 



218 Socialism and War 

substantive quality, so to say. It follows logically 
from this, (although this logical correlation has 
not always been recognized), that there are no 
separate national cultures, but only one human 
Civilization; that the so-called differences of na- 
tional culture among nations at the same stage of 
civilization, are mere differences of local color, 
unessential and unenduring in character, and 
bound to disappear with the disappearance of the 
particular mode of life which has produced them. 
This position is not exactly novel. It is in fact 
a further development and consolidation (to use 
an expression that has become familiar since the 
beginning of this war) of the theoretical position 
achieved during the peaceful epoch of capitalism 
of which I spoke in one of the earlier lectures. This 
is one of the instances when we Socialists stand 
for the achievements of bourgeois-capitalist civil- 
ization — achievements of the vigorous "classic" 
age of that order of things and accompanying 
ideology — as against the reactionary tendencies 
of its own later and more decrepit age. But we 
Socialists are never stand-patters. And so we do 
not simply stand pat on the achievements of ca- 
pitalist civilization at its best, but are ready to 
develop them further to their logical conclusions 
and in consonance with the general trend of evo- 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 219 

lution. We do not, therefore, merely take our 
stand on the essential equality of all races and 
nations, and the absence of any distinctive cul- 
tures; different in kind and therefore liable to 
differ in quality. We go a step further and say 
that while civilization is common to all mankind, 
this civilization is improving in qualty and reaches 
hgher levels as mankind surmounts the inherited 
difficulties of historic differences and approaches 
a common type superior to all localisms. Our 
goal is, therefore, not cosmopolitanism, sl state 
when different cultures merely dwell side by side, 
but true internationalism, when all national cul- 
tural differences will be merged in a higher, pan- 
human, culture. 

Now, I realize that I am treading here on ex- 
tremely dangerous ground, for I am now bucking 
up not only against the nationalistic prejudice but 
also against the dread of many good souls in our 
midst against so-called "levelling". It is curious 
how even people who can see the utter absurdity 
of the "levelling" charge when brought against the 
economic and social aspects of Socialism, will still 
consider it a valid objection to a common, non- 
local, and non-national, culture. Somehow they 
cannot divest themselves of the absurd notion that 
a common, non-national, culture, means a less 



220 Socialism and War 

varied, monotonous, poor kind of culture, at least 
from the artistic point of view. As a matter of 
fact such fears are utterly groundless, and we need 
not resort to hypothetical speculations as to a 
future state in order to convince ourselves of this. 
It is sufficient to examine intelligently the well- 
authenticated facts of the historic past. And we 
need not delve far into history either; it is suffi- 
cient to study the epoch of European history 
which closed but yesterday. 

As I pointed out in an earlier lecture, the face of 
Europe was not so very long ago covered by a mul- 
titude of tribes, each having its own character- 
istics of speech, dress, and manner, which marked 
it off and set it apart from all other tribes. These 
tribes have now disappeared and their place has 
been taken by a few great nations. Will any one 
say that European culture, its literature, its art, 
have become poorer on that account? 

Or, perhaps your fancy cannot carry you so far 
back so as to make the comparison. Take, then, 
the Germany of yesterday as an illustration. After 
emerging from the tribal state Germany still con- 
tinued broken up into a number of fragments: 
Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Hessians, Hanover- 
ians, etc., etc., and not merely in the sense that 
politically these sub-divisions of the German 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 221 

people were independent of each other, but in the 
sense that there existed many particular patriot- 
isms as a concomitant of these separate political 
entities. This condition continued until within 
the memory of living men. And their consolidation 
was opposed much on the same grounds, as the 
consolidation of all nations into a common, 
nation-less, humanity is being opposed now, that 
is to say, for "cultural" reasons. The Bavarian 
and the Saxon, the Swab and the Hessian, and the 
rest, were afraid that the culture of the world 
would grow poorer by the disappearance of the 
distinctive individuality of the three dozen 
different Germanic "cultures" and their merger 
into one "levelling" German culture. 

Have these fears been justified? Has German 
culture grown poorer, or has the world at large 
lost any valuable cultural element by the dis- 
appearance of the duodez cultures of Hanover 
and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, or even of the largest 
unit of them all ? Ask the world of art and letters. 
Nay, ask these same former duodez particular- 
ists. Ask any one of the present day shouters for 
German Kultur, whether Germany has lost in 
culture since the particular culture of the 
shouter's fatherland of fifty years ago, be it 
Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, or Saxe-Meiningen, 



222 Socialism and War 

has been merged in the general culture of Ger- 
many. 

These examples prove two things : First, that it 
is utterly absurd to assume an intimate relation 
between certain political boundaries, which may 
be the result of historic accident, even if they 
coincide with some particular twist of the tongue, 
and human culture. Second, that the amalga- 
mation of smaller units into larger ones is a 
means of progress and does not in any way retard 
or otherwise injuriously affect human culture. 
That, on the contrary, such amalgamations tend to 
broaden the vision and quicken the intellect, which 
of necessity results in a richer life and therefore 
in a richer culture. 

To that extent nations have been the means of 
advancing culture. But to that extent only. Having 
reached the nation-stage, to insist on remaining at 
it is not merely to refuse to go forward but it in- 
evitably means an attempt to go backward. 
Nationalism is as reactionary now, even from a 
purely cultural point of view, as was German par- 
ticularism two generations ago. 

But Socialist theory does not stop merely 
denying the nationalistic theory of progress. We 
have a theory of progress of our own, which we 
substitute for the national theory. The sub- 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 223 

stance of our theory — which is a part of the theory 
of the class-struggle — consists in the claim that 
social classes and the struggle between them are 
a means of furthering the general progress of 
humanity. We believe that the fundamental di- 
vision of the human species is not along racial or 
national lines, but along class lines, and that the 
great struggles which led to those social trans- 
formations which we call human progress were 
struggles along the class line of division. There is 
such wide-spread misconception of the Class 
Struggle theory that I think it worth while to 
spend a few minutes in giving you a general out- 
line of this theory, as a clear understanding of 
this theory is necessary to an understanding of 
what I believe to be the true Socialist position on 
the problem of peace and war. 

As commonly understood the theory of the 
Class Struggle "teaches" that Society is divided 
into two classes — the capitalist class and the 
working class — and that these two classes are, 
or should be, in a life-and-death struggle with 
each other. This notion of the Class Struggle 
theory may be considered a fairly correct 
approximation of one element in that theory. But 
it does not exhaust its meaning by far. Indeed, as 
so stated, it leaves out its most essential feature. 



224 Socialism and War 

For this theory is not merely a statement of 
things as they are in our society, but a general- 
ization of all past history, a theory of historical 
progress, a philosophy of history. This philosophy 
may be thus summarized: 

Ever since human society has been based on 
private property, which means practically ever 
since there has been any written history recording 
the progress of mankind, this society has been 
divided into classes, the upper classes always re- 
presenting a certain social economy, and being in 
control of the principal instruments of production 
and distribution of that economy. These different 
social classes are in an continual struggle among 
themselves ; not merely the upper classes with the 
lower, but the upper classes among themselves, 
each one of them struggling to make its economy 
the dominant economy of the community or nation 
and make every other economy subservient to it. 
In this struggle for economic supremacy each 
class endeavors to gain control of the political 
power of the community in order to use the en- 
tire collective power of the social organism to fur- 
ther its own cause. More than that : each class tries 
to give the social organism such an organization 
stitutions — as best suits the economic order 
— that is, it tries to establish such political in- 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 225 

which it represents. Each class therefore repre- 
sents a distinct economic and political order of 
things, which implies also a distinct moral and 
intellectual outlook upon the world. In other 
words, — a distinct phase of civilization or 
culture. 

The important classes, representing as they do, 
different social economies, appear on the historical 
arena successively. The appearance of a new 
class upon the arena of human history therefore 
means not only a new struggle but the beginning 
of a new epoch, a new advance, in our civilization. 

At first blush there seems to be a striking 
analogy between this theory and the nationalistic 
theory. The same idea of advance by struggle be- 
tween different cultures or phases of civilization. 
The same idea of a certain part of the human 
species being the carrier of a certain culture or 
phase of civilization, and the necessity of that par- 
ticular portion of mankind obtaining political 
dominion over the rest of mankind in order to 
permit the entire human race to take a step 
further on the road of progress by giving this 
particular culture or form of civilization the 
upper hand in the struggle of ideas and points of 
view. It would seem in fact that all that we 
Socialists did, in our boasted advance upon the 



226 Socialism and War 

nationalistic point of view, was to substitute the 
class for the nation. But upon a closer examin- 
ation of the subject we shall find that the sub- 
stitution of the class for the nation as the carrier 
of progress involves a fundamental change of view 
in the outlook upon the world and its meaning, 
and has a most far-reaching effect upon the 
decision of all practical problems with which we 
are confronted in our daily life, both as individuals 
and as members of an organized community, in- 
cluding the great problem just now engrossing 
the attention of the entire civilized world, — the 
problem of peace and war. 

In the first place, the nationalist theory is a 
conservative one, if not actually reactionary; 
while the Class Struggle theory is evolutionary 
and progressive. The Nationalist looks upon the 
world through the naive eyes of the author of the 
Book of Genesis, as the same was understood 
before any attempts were made to square its story 
of Creation with the results of modern science: 
The Creator, in his wisdom, created a number of 
nationalities, and endowed each of them with cer- 
tain characteristics and capabilities; some were 
intended to serve and others to rule; the ruling 
nationalities were each made the carrier of a cer- 
tain brand of culture; and these nationalities are 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 227 

therefore by the law of their creation and exist- 
ence to carry on a struggle for the supremacy of 
particular cultures. 

The Class Struggle theory does not look to 
Genesis but to Darwin and Science for an ex- 
planation of the existence of races and nations 
and their different endowments and character- 
istics. It believes in the theory of evolution and 
applies it to social phenomena. Races are the 
result of the natural conditions of the existence 
of the human race in different natural environ- 
ments, and nations are the result of these 
"natural" conditions plus the social conditions 
under which the different groups of the human 
family live and work. Neither is a permanent 
entity. Both are subject to change and trans- 
formation when the conditions of their existence 
change. And these conditions, particularly the 
social conditions, do constantly change. But not 
only are race and nation changeable entities, the 
class, likewise, is a changing entity; its existence 
being the result of social evolution and its 
character constantly undergoing a process of evo- 
lution. 

This difference in the point of view as to the 
origin and character of the divisions existing in 
the human family has a direct bearing upon the 



228 Socialism and War 

subject which is uppermost in our minds to-day: 
the nationalist theory is warlike, while the Class 
Struggle theory is peaceful. 

We have seen that the basic idea of nationalism 
is that the Creator has created different nation- 
alities, carriers of different cultures, and set them 
to fight each other. The idea of one Chosen People, 
the carrier of the Culture, is not only the logical 
corollary of this basic idea, but is practically in- 
separable from it. And the idea of a Chosen 
People is inseparable from the ideas of war, con- 
quest, dominion. The Chosen People of Genesis 
and what follows it are a warlike, ferocious, con- 
quering, exterminating, people. Their God is the 
conquering Lord of Hosts, — the cruel, ruthless 
War Lord. And properly so : The Culture can be 
established only on the ruins of the inferior cul- 
tures contesting its supremacy. It must exter- 
minate them root and branch. What matters it, if 
in the process some, or even many, human lives 
are destroyed? Destruction is the law of life, and 
the progress of the species is worth any sacrifice. 
Particularly if the sacrifice is of inferior human 
beings and it rebounds to the welfare of the 
superior race, the Chosen People. And the modern 
adepts of the Chosen People idea, with its cultural 
mission, have shown in theory and practice the 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 229 

acceptance of the idea that the War Lord and his 
ways are still the proper, if not the only, means 
of carrying out this cultural mission. 

The Class Struggle theory stands in absolute 
contrast to this. Not only are there no inferior 
races or nations : there are no inherently inferior 
classes. The class representing the old and anti- 
quated order of things, the class against whom the 
new and progressive class is fighting, does not 
consist of inferior individuals, individuals in 
themselves less useful or less worthy members of 
the social organism. It is only their social 
position within a certain social order that makes 
the rising class fight them. The fight can, there' 
fore, never be directed against them as individuals, 
there can be no personal hatred against them, 
and therefore no desire to encompass their 
destruction. The fight is merely against their 
social position; and that not with a view of sup^ 
planting them, but for the purpose of abolishing 
that position itself and place them in a position 
of equality with the members of the attacking 
class. The class struggle is, therefore, from the 
point of view of the attacking force, not a fight 
for superiority but for equality. 

Furthermore, even as a class the class attacked 
is not supposed to be an inferior class, in the eyes 



230 Socialism and War 

of the attacking class ; — hut merely a super- 
annuated class, a class that has outlived its use- 
fulness. As was already pointed out, the Class 
Struggle theory, when rightly understood, 
ascribes to each class an important historical part, 
a cultural mission. And while each succeeding 
class represents a higher phase of civilization, it 
does not mean that the earlier one was of less 
importance in the general development of human 
civilization. Its domination is to be abolished, 
but it is to be neither hated nor despised. 

And this brings us to the most important 
difference between the national and the class point 
of view with respect to the "enemy culture". We 
have already seen that the nationalist superior 
culture fights to destroy its opponents. That is 
perfectly proper from its point of view, because 
the enemy culture is an utterly alien and 
antagonistic entity. Not so with class culture. 
From the point of view of the Class Struggle 
theory, the new culture, represented by the rising 
class is not something utterly alien to nor some- 
thing entirely independent of, the culture of the 
class which it is fighting. On the contrary, it is 
intimately connected with it, being merely a 
further step in the same process of development. 
With all its enmity to the order to be abolished, 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 231 

is does not mean to destroy it entirely, only certain 
of its attributes. The good that it has brought, 
the real cultural advances that it has made are to 
be retained and made permanent. 

The enemy class is to be fought and its social 
dominion abolished, but its cultural work is not 
to be destroyed. 

In fact its cultural mission is to be helped along, 
whenever it needs our assistance in order to 
accomplish this task. And whenever the enemy 
class should prove false to its own ideals and cul- 
tural mission, and abandon its historical task in 
the advancement of civilization, it becomes our 
mission to accomplish this task and finish the work 
thus left undone. 

But there is another important distinction 
between the historico-cultural conceptions of 
Nationalism on the one hand, and the Class- 
Struggle theory, adopted by Socialism, on the 
other. A distinction which colors the entire out- 
look upon the world and its doings, and therefore 
of the greatest practical importance. It is this : 

According to the Nationalist-Imperialist idea of 
historical progress, races and nations have not 
only always existed, but will always exist. This is 
the only possible modus vivendi of the human 
species. The nations were put there not merely to 



232 Socialism and War 

fight for supremacy, but also to preserve their 
identity. And this applies to superior and inferior 
races alike, to conquering as well as vanquished 
nations. The super-race or super-nation is to im- 
pose its will and culture upon the other races and 
nations, but it must not assimilate them, absorb 
them into its own body, on pain of itself degene- 
rating and losing that position in the world for 
which it was intended by the act of Creation. I 
have already mentioned the fact that according to 
the nationalistic theory the chosen race or nation 
is the only carrier of its particular culture. The in- 
ferior races and nations may accept it by submit- 
ting to it and live under its beneficient rule, but 
they can never become its living carriers and pro- 
pagators. Purity of race is itself a sign of super- 
iority, while "mongrel" races are necessarily in- 
ferior. The maintenance of the chosen race or 
nation in its pristine purity is therefore the first 
commandment in the nationalist code. 

The practical ideal of the nationalist philosophy 
is the perpetuation of races and nationalities with 
their existing divisions into superior and inferior, 
ruling and servile; the perpetuation of strife 
among them in its double aspect of an attempt by 
all the so-called superior nations to enslave the 
inferior ones, and of the struggle of the alleged 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 233 

superior nations among themselves for first place, 
for domination of the entire world. In other words 
— the perpetuation of war. 

Not so the Socialist theory of the Class Struggle. 
The class is not an essential and immutable ele- 
ment of progress in this theory in the same sense 
that the Nation is in the nationalist theory. I have 
already pointed out the fact that according to our 
theory classes are not eternal, but that each class 
is destined to occupy the historical arena only for 
a given time, accomplishing its historical mission, 
which is only a temporary phase of the evolution 
of the entire species, and then disappearing with- 
in the bowels of the human race which gave it 
birth. I must now call your attention to another 
important feature of our theory: Not only is each 
class merely a passing phenomenon of human evo- 
lution, but progress-by-means-of-the-class-strug- 
gle is itself only a phase of human evolution, the 
class struggle being the means of human progress 
only during a certain epoch of the history of the 
species, — the epoch in which private property is 
the basis of the social-economic order. There were 
epochs of human history when society was not 
divided into classes, and when human progress 
was therefore effected without the intervention of 
the class struggle. And we are looking forward 



234 Socialism and War 

to a time when classes will again disappear, and 
when human progress will be effected by other and 
more peaceful means than the struggle of the clas- 
ses. Instead of preaching or teaching a perpetual 
struggle of the classes, the most essential feature, 
the cardinal doctrine, of the Class-Struggle theory- 
is the abolition of classes and of the class struggle. 

Applying these theoretical distinctions to prac- 
tical problems we find the following differences of 
policy between the Nationalists and the Socialists : 

The Nationalist is a reactionary or conservative, 
while the Socialist is a progressive. The Nation- 
alist does not merely look backward for the pur- 
pose of discovering the origin of races and nations 
in the act of Creation, but also to discover his 
ideal of the future. His future lies in the past. 
It is in the past that the race or nation existed in 
unquestioned purity. It was then that its true 
characteristics, its essential qualities, its true 
spirit, manifested themselves — in its old and time- 
honored institutions. It is therefore his manifest 
duty to strive to preserve these institutions; and 
the older the institution the greater the duty of 
preservation. To conserve the past, with its out- 
lived and outworn institutions, is the practical 
program of Nationalism. And wherever the old 
and hoary institutions have been encroached upon 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 235 

and their efficiency impaired by recent in- 
novations, this program includes not merely con- 
servation of what is, but also a retracing of steps 
in order to regain what was. Conservatism is fol- 
lowed logically by reaction, 

A glance at the world around us, and a look into 
the history of the past fifty years, will prove the 
correctness of this assertion. I stated in one of 
the preceding lectures that the republican-demo- 
cratic form of government was an essential ele- 
ment of bourgeois-capitalistic philosophy during 
its peaceful-cosmopolitan epoch, when that philo- 
sophy reached its highest cultural level. During 
the fifty years or so that have passed since, there 
has been considerable filling and backing, and 
considerable retracing of steps in that particular. 
Instead of forging forward towards a realization 
of its ideals, the bourgeoisie, under the influence 
of the Imperialistic trend, has entirely 
abandoned its demand for a republican form of 
government, not only as a practical program 
but as an ideal. At no time within the past 
century and a half were monarchical institutions 
so popular among the "educated classes" as at the 
present time. This is particularly true of those 
parts of Western Europe where republicanism 
was strongest half-a-century ago. 



236 Socialism and War 

Some of us old-fashioned Americans who have 
failed to read the signs of the times may have been 
rather surprised to hear Prof. Munsterberg of 
Harvard tell us soon after the outbreak of the 
present war that in Germany they considered a 
republic "reactionary"; that not only did they 
(that is, the German educated classes) not aspire 
towards a republic, but that they would consider 
the introduction of the republican form of govern- 
ment as a relapse into a lower cultural level. Per- 
haps some of us even jumped to the conclusion 
that the learned Professor was libelling his 
countrymen. But to those who are familiar with 
the latest fruits and flowers of Imperialistic 
culture, there was nothing new or startling in the 
gentleman's declaration. His was the true voice 
of the new trend. A new trend which is not 
peculiar to Germany, but is common to all up-to- 
date Europe. And while this trend is stronger in 
Germany than elsewhere, the difference is merely 
one of degree and not of kind. As the foremost 
representative of the modern Imperialistic spirit, 
as the principal expounder of the race-national- 
istic theories which form its base, Germany 
naturally leads in this march backwards. But the 
others follow, and not so very far behind either. 

The only ones that have refused to follow were 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 237 

those portions of the working class who, following 
the leadership of the Socialist theorists, accepted 
the doctrines of the Class Struggle philosophy and 
the practical program dictated thereby. Facing 
forward, they care very little for the cast-off 
clothes of the past ; nor have they any particular 
attachment for present-day institutions either be- 
cause of their age or supposed connection with a 
particular national spirit or so-called genius of the 
race. Furthermore, believing in a steady forward 
march of the human race as a whole, they do be- 
lieve in the achievements of the entire human race, 
including certain forms of social and economic 
life, which we ought to maintain and develop fur- 
ther. Among these are republican and democra- 
tic forms of government. The Socialist part of the 
working class therefore considers itself in duty 
bound to cherish the ideal of, and carry on the 
struggle for, republicanism and democracy wher- 
ever and whenever the bourgeoisie, the class 
whose mission it was to introduce these forms of 
government into modern society, has gone back 
on them. 

And here I must stop for a moment in order to 
explain what, according to the Class Struggle 
theory, was the historic mission of the capitalist 
class — in the broader meaning of those words 



238 Socialism and War 

which makes them co-terminous with the word 
bourgeoisie — as that has an intimate relation 
with our position on the war question as I under- 
stand it. 

Briefly speaking, the historic mission of the 
capitalist class was to establish political liberty 
and freedom of economic intercourse. I do not 
want to be misunderstood : I do not use the word 
"mission" in the same sense as the nationalistic 
theorists use that word, — in a teleologic sense. 
What I want to say is this: In order to fully 
develop those economic forces which gave birth 
to and attained their development during the 
epoch known as the capitalistic era, two things 
were necessary: personal, and economic freedom. 
The capitalist class needed these two things in 
order to overthrow the political rule of the feudal 
class, which preceded it in the rulership of society, 
and abolish the economic order known as feudal- 
ism. These two things therefore became the 
essential features of its ideology, — its way of look- 
ing upon the world. Driven by its economic 
interests, and its ideals born of those interests, it 
strove to accomplish these two purposes, which, 
when accomplished, constituted an absolute and 
permanent gain for human civilization. 

By "economic freedom" I mean here freedom of 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 239 

economic intercourse, which must be reckoned 
among the great achievements of capitalism, 
along with political liberty. For freedom of eco- 
nomic intercourse, both within the nation and 
between nations, is absolutely necessary for a full 
and rational development of all the economic 
forces latent within our social system. Unfortun- 
ately, the capitalist class fully accomplished these 
achievements only in theory, and not in practice. 
For a short time and in a limited area it came 
near accomplishing it fully, when it suddenly 
halted and turned back upon itself. 

The working class, which considers itself the 
heir to all of the cultural achievements of the past, 
which it must use as a foundation in building its 
own cultural edifice in the future, therefore finds 
that the two cultural ideals of capitalism have been 
placed by fate in its keeping. Besides doing its 
own work proper it must carry to a finish the task 
left unfinished by the capitalist class, as well as 
protect against all attack whatever has already 
been accomplished. 

Now, what is the application of the theoretical 
positions of those who accept the Class-Struggle 
Theory of evolution to the subject of war? 

It is self-evident that those who accept the 
theory of the Class Struggle cannot possibly be for 



240 Socialism and War 

war in the same sense and for the same reasons 
that the Nationalists may be, and usually are, for 
war. War is, at best, carried on by a nation for 
national purposes. Denying as the Socialists of 
that school do the importance or legitimacy of the 
national purposes, they cannot, of course, favor 
such wars. Whatever valid argument the Nation- 
alist may advance on behalf of war, applies, from 
the Class Struggle point of view, only to "the war 
of the classes", but not to war among nations. 
They cannot, therefore, have any valid reason for 
the awful destruction of life and property which 
war occasions, and must therefore be opposed to 
war for purely humanitarian reasons. The human- 
itarian point of view is in itself a perfectly legiti- 
mate one, and is the only one naturally taken by 
us when there are no reasons sufficient to out- 
weigh it. The nationalistic philosophy presents 
such outweighing reasons in the "national in- 
terest". Take away the validity of the "national 
interest" reason from our feeling and our judg- 
ment, and we are thrown back on our common 
humanity, supported by our personal interest 
which is nearly always against war because of the 
great sacrifices which it brings with it. lam speak- 
ing, of course, of really popular wars, in which 
the number of those who go into the war either 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 241 

because of an excess of "fighting blood" or because 
of actual pecuniary interest must be a negligible 
quantity 

But the Socialists who accept the Class Struggle 
theory of progress must be opposed to war for 
other than purely humanitarian reasons. In fact, 
all the valid reasons which the nationalist ad- 
vances in favor of war are to the Socialist so 
many reasons why he should be opposed to it. 
Nay, all the reasons which the nationalist can 
advance in favor of the peaceful acquisition of 
power by his nation, whenever peaceful acqui- 
sition of power is possible, are to the Socialist so 
many additional reasons why he should be opposed 
to war. 

I have already stated that whatever valid 
reasons the nationalists may advance in favor of 
war apply, from the Socialist point of view, only 
to "the war of the classes". It goes therefore 
without saying that whatever valid ground there 
may be, from the nationalistic point of view, for 
the desire to increase the power and extend the 
influence of one's nation by "peaceful" means, that 
is all means short of actual wholesale destruction 
of lives and property, are, from the Socialist point 
of view, so many grounds for the desire to in- 
crease the power and extend the influence of one's 



242 Socialism and War 

class. From the Class Struggle point of view the 
class does in fact occupy, for the time being, that 
is as long as society is divided into classes, the 
same place that the nation does in the most ultra- 
nationalistic philosophy. The welfare of his 
class is a "good citizen's" chief concern. The good 
class-patriot will therefore labor incessantly for 
the increase of the power and the extension of 
the influence of his class. Paraphrasing the 
national-patriot he says : "My class may it ever be 
right, but right or wrong my class'\ And when it 
comes to the choice of means in order to further 
the cause of his class, he again follows the lead of 
the good national-patriot and says: "I shall use 
peaceful means if I can, but any means that will 
serve the purpose if I musf\ The class-interest 
is paramount to him to any other consideration, 
just as the national interest is paramount to any 
other consideration from the standpoint of the 
national patriot. 

But national wars are always opposed to the 
class-interests of those engaged in the class- 
struggle from below, wherever "the war of the 
classes" is in progress. Just as the class-war is 
opposed to the national interest when a national 
war is in progress. The divisions along class lines 
on the one hand and national lines on the other are 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 243 

fundamentally antagonistic to each other. It may 
be stated as a general proposition, to which only 
few, if any, exceptions can be found, that their 
interests are in deadly antagonism, in the sense 
that whatever intensifies one line of demarcation 
— strengthens one line of division — necessarily 
impairs and weakens the other line of division. 
War conducted along one line of division neces- 
sarily crosses, and therefore impedes, war con- 
ducted along the other line of division. 

When the present war broke out, the national 
interests which dictated and directed it im- 
mediately demanded a cessation of the class war 
as detrimental to the prosecution of the national 
war. And those who accepted the nationalistic 
point of view in this war agreed to suspend the 
class-war, as a subordinate struggle, in view of 
the presence of the national war, which they con- 
sider the paramount struggle. And, assuming the 
paramountcy of the division along national lines 
over the division along class lines, and therefore 
of the national interest over the class interest, 
this action was absolutely correct. The "Burg- 
frieden", as the suspension of hostilities along 
class lines is called in Germany, is an official 
acknowledgment of two things : first, that the two 
struggles — national struggle and class struggle 



244 Socialism and War 

— cross each other's path, interfere with each 
other, are inimical one to another; and, second, 
that the national struggle is recognized as of 
basic importance, besides which the class strug- 
gle is a mere family squabble. 

And just as the Burgfrieden — inter class peace 
— is the logical position for those who believe in 
the paramountcy of the national struggle and 
therefore of national interests, so is international 
peace the only possible position of those who 
acknowledge the paramountcy of the division 
along class lines, and therefore of the class strug- 
gle and of class interests. 

Just as the national interest demands the sus- 
pension of the class struggle in order to effect the 
unity of the nation, which it considers not only 
necessary to actual success in the national war 
but the only basis for a real national war ; so the 
class interest demands the absolute suspension of 
all national hostilities, the unity of the class ir- 
respective of conflicting national interests, as the 
only basis upon which the class struggle can be 
conducted either logically or successfully. It is 
because of this that the call "Workers of the 
World Unite!" has become the battle-cry of the 
working class when it consciously entered upon 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 245 

the warpath in the class struggle now waging in 
our society. 

Active, unrelentless opposition to war, irre- 
spective of the demands of so-called "national in- 
terests", is therefore the "natural state" of the 
Socialist who accepts the Class Struggle theory. 
Believing as he does that the basic division of 
mankind is along class lines, and that it is that 
division which counts principally in all questions 
affecting the progress of humanity, the so-called 
"national interests" seem to him a snare and a 
delusion. A snare, because instead of promoting 
progress Ihe division which is the foundation of 
these interests lies across its path and interferes 
with the prosecution of the struggle which really 
does promote progress, — ^the class struggle. And 
a delusion, because there is in reality no such thing 
as a "national interest", in the sense of an inter- 
est which affects equally the entire nation and 
the preservation of which is equally important 
to all classes within the nation. 

Under certain exceptional circumstances all 
the classes within a nation may have a common 
interest in a certain result, which each may con- 
sider desirable from its own point of view. But 
such common interest is not therefore or neces- 
sarily a truly national interest, that is an interest 



246 Socialism and War 

which reposes in or adheres to the nation qua 
nation. And, therefore even when working for 
such a common end, the class point of view which 
makes this end desirable for the members of each 
class must never be lost sight of. If the class point 
of view is lost sight of, and the national point of 
view adopted in such a case, infinite harm is 
likely to result to the under-class struggling for 
supremacy and therefore interested in pushing 
the class fight. Let me give you an illustration: 
Supposing the carnage of the war in the Western 
battle area had caused the plague to appear in 
Belgium and Northern France. The civil pop- 
ulation of Belgium as well as the German army 
of invasion now occupying Belgium, would be in- 
terested in stopping the ravages of the plague. 
These inimical parts of the present population of 
Belgium would then have the common object of 
exterminating the plague germ, or whatever else 
has to be done in order to stop the further pro- 
gress of the scourge. But it is evident that this 
would neither unite the inimical portions of the 
present population of Belgium into one har- 
monious whole, nor would it turn this community 
of interest into an identity or solidarity of in- 
terest. 

And don't imagine that this is a distinction 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 247 

without a difference. On the contrary, the dif- 
ference is a deep-rooted one and likely to have 
very important practical results. Supposing it 
were discovered that the surest and most effective 
way of combatting the plague would be for the 
German army to withdraw from Belgium, a 
real identity of interests would of course make 
the German army withdraw at once, but a mere 
community of interest in fighting the plague 
wouldn't. Again, suppose that the ravages of 
the plague were particularly strong in the army 
camps, so that there was danger of the army be- 
coming so weakened as to be compelled to with- 
draw into Germany. A real identity of interest 
would evidently dictate to the Belgians an entirely 
different policy from the mere community of in- 
terest in fighting a common enemy. Woe to the 
side that would mistake community for identity 
of interests! You may be sure the German army 
wouldn't. The upper-dog never does. 

In the foregoing I have attempted to give the 
Socialist position on war generally and uninflu- 
enced by local conditions ; the Socialist position as 
it would be in a case where the issue between na- 
tional struggle and class struggle would be 
squarely presented by the absence of complicating 
circumstances. But in the actual world of fact 



248 Socialism and War 

issues are very seldom presented in a simple form. 
In most cases issues are obscured by extraneous 
matter, and complicated by secondary issues. As 
far as the subject which we are now discussing 
is concerned the issue may be complicated, prin- 
cipally, by three kinds of facts or considerations : 
(1) Facts relating to the stage of development of 
the countries coming into question in any partic- 
ular war, and the influence that the war may have 
on the development of those liberties which, as I 
have pointed out before, we Socialists regard as 
the cultural achievement of the capitalist epoch to 
be cherished and preserved for the future in the 
countries affected by the war. (2) Facts re- 
lating to the condition and development of na- 
tionalistic tendencies, and the manner in which 
they would be affected by the war, or by a partic- 
ular manner of its termination. (3) General con- 
siderations of justice, and the influence that the 
war may have on the general development of the 
principles of liberty. 

To take up the last class of facts first: As I 
have already stated, the Socialists do not believe 
in any superior and inferior races. They there- 
fore cannot see an?/ reason for the subjection of 
one race or nation by another. On the other hand 
their ideal looks towards a time when there will 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 249 

be no struggle and no subjection of any kind of 
one part of the human race by another. They 
even want to abdicate the predominance of their 
own class after it shall have achieved supremacy 
in order to accomplish this result. Any kind of 
subjection, and for whatever cause, be it sex, 
race, color, religion, or "previous condition of 
servitude", is equally abhorrent to them. They 
therefore believe in national freedom, in the right 
of each nation to be master of its own destinies, so 
long as nations do exist. This includes political, 
economic, as well as spiritual and intellectual 
freedom. 

And they are ready to go to war for it when ne- 
cessary. That is why the Socialists have always 
been in sympathy with all "wars of liberation", 
although they well knew that a "war of libera- 
tion" always meant to the great masses of the 
people the liberation from a "foreign yoke" so 
that they might be exploited by their own ruling 
class. It must be stated, however, that by rea- 
son of this latter fact, which made the "liberty" 
in question a pure fiction, the Socialists* enthu- 
siasm for a "war of liberation" always depended 
largely on whether or not it accorded with the 
development of liberal institutions generally, and 
the requirements of the class struggle. To the 



250 Socialism and War 

same category, although somewhat exceptional 
in its facts, belongs our Civil War, which was on 
the part of the North a "War of Liberation" for 
the Negro race in its results at least. It therefore 
evoked the enthusiastic support of Karl Marx, who 
did much to uphold the cause of the North by mar- 
shalling on its behalf the advanced portion of 
the English working class, at a time when the 
ruling classes of England were favoring the 
South, and although the immediate interests of 
the English workingmen were on the same side. 
Such wars are now, however, practically a thing 
of the past; at least until the dawn of a new 
revolutionary epoch. 

A fair example of the first class of cases re- 
ferred to by me above is the situation in Europe 
as it existed immediately prior to and at the time 
of the Crimean War, when Marx was in favor of a 
war by the Western European powers against 
Russia. As I have already stated in my last lecture 
the differences in the economic development be- 
tween Russia and the West of Europe, and their 
international balance of power as it then was, 
seemed to Marx to demand a war by a Western 
European coalition against Russia, as a means 
of insuring the unhindered development of free 
institutions in Western Europe. I have already 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 251 

pointed out, in the same lecture, that European 
conditions have changed so much since the Crim- 
ean War, that a war against Russia is now in no 
way different from a war against any other "civil- 
ized" nation. And I may add here that the general 
situation the world over is now such that no war 
could be planned that would serve to advance the 
cause of free institutions either in any of the war- 
ring countries or anywhere else in the world. On 
the contrary, the most probable, if not the in- 
evitable result, of any war waged at this time 
would be a considerable strengthening of the 
powers of reaction everywhere, and almost of all 
naturally in the warring countries. The present 
war has already furnished abundant proof of the 
correctness of this assertion. And I venture to 
assert that we have not seen the end of it yet, nor 
the worst of it. 

The present war also furnishes indisputable 
proof, if any proof were indeed necessary, that 
every war serves to accentuate national divisions, 
intensifies national animosities wherever they 
existed before and creates new ones where none 
existed before, and generally gives new life and 
impetus to the nationalistic spirit; and, cor- 
respondingly, lowers the vitality of the forces 



252 Socialism and War 

carrying on the class struggle on behalf of the 
working class. 

It may therefore be confidently asserted that 
no matter what causes Socialists may have had 
for desiring war in the past, — in our own day and 
generation, at least, no combination of circum- 
stances is at all likely to arise which could out- 
weigh the great objections which Socialists must 
have to war. The present-day policy of Social- 
ism must therefore be unalterable opposition to 
all wars of aggression. 

And not only before war has broken out, but all 
the time. 

And now as to defensive wars. I have already 
stated that up to the present war the rule of 
action most widely accepted among Socialists was 
based on the distinction between wars of ag- 
gression and defensive wars. Its greatest cham- 
pion was Bebel, and it found its classic expression 
in his announcement, that — "Wenn wir werden 
angegriffen dann wehren wir uns", — if we are 
attacked we shall defend ourselves. I have also 
mentioned already the criticism which Kautsky 
passed on the distinction between aggressive and 
defensive war as a rule of action. Since the 
commencement of the present war it has been re- 
peatedly stated that this war has conclusively 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 253 

demonstrated the untenableness of that distinc- 
tion. These statements, usually made by the apol- 
ogists of Germany and of the conduct of the Ger- 
man Socialists in this war, must not be confused 
with Kautsky*s criticism of BebeFs position at 
the Jena Congress. 

Kautsky's contention was that BebeFs distinc- 
tion was an unserviceable one in practice, because 
of the fact that if we adhered strictly to the policy 
that "if we are attacked we shall defend our- 
selves" it lies easily within the power of any 
government, particularly such a government as 
the German Government which can back up its 
lies by a forcible suppression of the truth, to make 
an aggressive war appear to the majority of the 
working class as a defensive one, and thus drag us 
into an aggressive war. He therefore sought for a 
rule of conduct which would leave us our liberty 
of action even in case of a defensive war. The 
present German apologists do exactly the reverse. 
Asserting that the present war has demonstrated 
the lack of all distinction between wars of aggres- 
sion and defensive wars, they proceed to disclaim 
any obligation on the part of Socialists to refrain 
from engaging in any kind of war. In other 
words, they dwell on Kautsky's criticism of the 
distinction between aggressive and defensive wars 



254 Socialism and War 

not for the purpose of emancipating ourselves 
from a doctrinaire rule of action which might in 
practice turn us over bound hand and foot to our 
enemies, the militarists; but for the purpose of 
throwing aside all restraint of Socialist principle 
or policy, so that we may join in the militarist re- 
vels even to the extent of joining in avowedly ag- 
gressive wars. We know that the devil can quote 
Scripture. Socialist opportunists who chafe under 
the restraints imposed upon their conduct by So- 
cialist principles are past masters in quoting 
Marx, Engels, and other Socialist authorities, to 
cover up their — from a Socialist point of view — 
thoroughly disrepubtable conduct. 

As a matter of fact, far from proving that there 
is really no difference between aggressive and de- 
fensive war, the present war has proven just 
the contrary. There can be no doubt but that the 
decidedly unfriendly feeling against Germany 
which now prevails all over the world is due in a 
measure at least to the fact that the world believes 
Germany to have been the aggressor in the pre- 
sent war. And the strong feeling of resentment 
prevalent among Socialists the world over against 
the German Socialists over their conduct in this 
war, a feeling which pervades circles hitherto 
most friendly to the German Soci^lJstSi is due al- 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 255 

most entirely to the fact that they are believed to 
have engaged in aggressive war. All the protest- 
ations of Germany and of German Socialists that 
this is a defensive war on Germany's part could 
not affect the world's judgment, arrived at with- 
out great difficulty, on the question of fact as to 
who is the aggressor in this war. Nor could any 
specious arguments to the effect that there really 
is no difference between aggressive and defensive 
war affect our instinctive feeling to the contrary 
and the consequent judgment of the world at large, 
including the Socialists, on the moral questions in- 
volved. 

That does not mean, however, that from a So- 
cialist point of view every defensive war is right, 
— ^that we can subscribe to the rule that "if we 
are attacked we shall defend ourselves". And quite 
aside from the fact that this rule may be impracti- 
able as a guide to action, as pointed out by Kauts- 
ky. The real trouble with this rule is that it is 
wrong in principle. It is based on the nationalistic 
principle that the "nation" or "country" must be 
preserved in all its vigor and power; any attack 
upon it must therefore be repelled, as it is likely to 
diminish that power. But once you cast the na- 
tionalist principle aside, and substitute class- in- 
terest for national interest as the basic principle 



256 Socialism and War 

determining conduct, why should the members of 
the working class go to war with other members 
of the working class in order to defend the power 
of their respective "nations". Marx said that the 
working man has no country. Nor has it any 
nation. In the sense in which the words "country" 
and "nation" are used by nationalistic patriots, — 
that is to say in the sense that their "power" is his 
power, which it is in his interest to defend. 

Why, for instance, should English workingmen 
go to the defence of "their country" if the United 
States were to attack England for the purpose of 
taking away Canada ? What interest has the Eng- 
lish working class in the "power" of the British 
Empire which expresses itself in the possession 
of Canada, Egypt, South Africa, or India, — ^that 
would not only be worth the sacrifices which a 
great war entails upon the working class of the 
country engaged in war, but also the weakening 
of the working class generally by a war among its 
different local divisions, which is equivalent to 
"civil war'' in the domain of national interests? 
Similarly, why should French workingmen go to 
the defence of "their country" in order to pre- 
serve their "national power" which expresses it- 
self in the possession of Algiers, Morocco, or 
Tunis, — if France should be attacked by some 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 257 

power coveting the same? And why should the 
German working class rush to the defence of 
Germany if that "country" should be attacked by 
Japan for the purpose of wresting from it Kiau- 
chau, or by England for the purpose of dispos- 
sessing it from Southwest or Southeast Africa, 
or even by Russia for the purpose of despoiling 
it of the Polish Province of Posen? What 
interest have German workingmen in "Ger- 
many's" possession of Posen, even though it has 
been part of Prussia and therefore of "Germany" 
for more than a hundred years ? 

In general what interest has the working class 
of any country in the so-called "power" or "great- 
ness" of that "nation" or that "country", which 
would make it worth — to paraphrase a famous 
saying of Bismarck — the bones of a single 
workingman ? 

Evidently the fact that "we" are attacked does 
not at all impose upon us the duty of defending 
"ourselves". As a matter of fact, we, that is the 
working class, are never attacked, in any war, 
for we have nothing worth taking; and we never 
defend ourselves, nor anything belonging to tis. 

Does that mean that the members of the work- 
ing class have no interest whatever in their 
country, and that they need not, or should not, 



258 Socialism and War 

defend it under any circumstances? Not at all. 
But it does mean that they have no interest in 
the ordinary sense to preserve; no such material 
interest as the capitalists or members of the 
middle class have, nor such spiritual interests 
as the nationalists profess to have. His interest 
is a broadly human one, although it is dictated 
by his class interests and the necessities and re- 
quirements of the class struggle. I have already 
pointed out that, broadly speaking, the interests 
of the working class engaged in the class struggle 
and the interests of humanity and progress are 
identical. Identical, not in the Pickwickian or 
Nietzschean sense of the nationalists, according 
to which it is to the interest of humanity that 
the vast majoriy of humankind should be de- 
graded into an enormous pedestal upon which a 
Super-man or Super-nation could stand up in his 
or its glory, but in a real human and common- 
sense way. The human ideal of those engaged in 
the class struggle on the side of the working 
class therefore abhors all and any kind of subjec- 
tion and exploitation of man by his fellow-men, 
including the subjection and exploitation of one 
race or nation by another. 

Furthermore, any inequality among human 
beings and the subjection of any part of the 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 259 

human family by another interferes in a very real 
and practical sense with the successful prosecution 
of the class struggle. Such subjections and in- 
equalities lead to struggles which cross the path 
and tend to obscure, hamper and delay, the class 
struggle of the working class and its successful 
issue. As long as nations do exist in fact and in 
the consciousness of people, the class struggle can 
only be carried on successfully within free nations. 
A nation, or part of a nation, subject to the en- 
forced dominion of an alien nation is unfit for the 
class struggle, because that struggle is obscured 
and complicated by the national struggle which is 
inevitable in such a case. 

The working class of any nation or country is 
therefore vitally interested, in 'preserving the 
freedom from alien dominion of that nation or 
country. And the Socialist is ready to go to war in 
order to defend that freedom. His readiness to go 
to war in defence of his country is however 
strictly limited by his desire to preserve this 
national freedom. The words "nation" and 
"country" therefore have for him a different 
meaning from that currently given to them. To 
begin with he draws a distinction between his 
nation or country and its government. An attack 
upon the armed force of "his" government is not 



260 Socialism and War 

necessarily an attack upon his nation or country. 
Nor is an invasion of his "national territory" as 
the same is shown on the map necessarily an attack 
upon his nation or country. The invasion by the 
United States of Canada, for instance, would not, 
from his point of view be an attack upon the 
English Nation nor the invasion of an English- 
man's country. Nor would the invasion by Russia 
of the German Province of Posen inhabited by 
Poles be an attack upon the German Nation or 
the invasion of a German's country. 

But there is another and even more important 
aspect of the class-conscious workingman's readi- 
ness to come to the defence of his country which 
must not be overlooked. When he does come to 
the defence of his country, it is not because it is 
his. He is not actuated by the narrow and sel- 
fish motives of your nationalistic patriot, but by 
the broad "humanistic" motive that a part of the 
human race is threatened with subjection, and 
that another obstacle is being placed in the path 
of the final emancipation of the entire human race 
from the inequalities, degradations, and miseries 
incident to class-society. 

And this, again, is not a mere metaphysical dis- 
tinction without any real, practical difference. 
The difference is both practical and far-reaching. 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 261 

The theory of nationalism and "national inter- 
ests" in whose behalf wars are to be fought, has 
its logical complement in the theory of neutrality. 
We go to war when our "national interests" de- 
mand it. But when we have no "national in- 
terests" to preserve, we don't care what becomes 
of the human race. We are not our brother's 
keeper. We are neutral. So any nation may rob, 
pillage, destroy or subjugate any other nation 
without it being the least of our concerns, so long 
as our national interests are not in any way in- 
juriously affected thereby. 

The Socialists reject this doctrine as a monu- 
mental monstrosity, — the acme of selfishness, con- 
ceived, nurtured, and reared in the atmosphere of 
nationalism, an atmosphere surcharged with sel- 
fishness and deadening to all sense of justice and 
the higher impulses of humanity. In its place we 
substitute the doctrine of international solidar- 
ity. The human race is one family, in a real 
sense of the term. An injury to one is the concern 
of all. When, therefore, war is upon us, and its 
conditions are such that the working class of any 
warring nation is properly called upon to defend 
that nation, or any part of it, from subjugation 
and domination by another nation, the working 
class of the entire world has an interest in the 



262 Socialism and War 

defense of the nation whose independence and 
liberty are attacked, and it should rally to prevent 
the outrage. 

That does not mean that in every such case the 
workijngmen of all "neutral" countries should 
rush their governments to war. Like practical 
people we must always count the cost. Not, in- 
deed, selfishly, — ^the cost to our nation or our 
working class, in the old nationalistic way. But 
the cost to the international working class, the 
cost to the world and its future progress. Every 
war, as has already been pointed out, has an in- 
jurious effect upon general progress and affects 
most disastrously the class struggle of the work- 
ing class, — the hope of humanity. Every exten- 
sion of the war usually and almost necessarily 
means an increase of these injurious effects. 
These must be carefully weighed as against the 
injury that is desired to be averted, to which 
should be added the salutary effect which true 
international action, based not on a chance com- 
munity of interest of the different nations but 
on the identity of interest of the proletariat 
of all the nations, must have on the class- 
struggle, and which may compensate in whole or 
in part for the increased national hatreds en- 
gendered by the extension of the war. 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 263 

These things should be carefully weighed, and 
no decision, particularly no decision in favor of 
war, lightly made. Where chances are to be 
taken we should take the chance of erring on the 
side of opposition to war rather than in favoring 
it. But whatever the decision, it must be con- 
trolled exclusively by considerations of its results 
upon the international working class and its 
struggle for emancipation. Indeed, the consid- 
erations leading to the action taken may, nay, will, 
have much to do with the results flowing there- 
from as far as the working class is concerned. 
The same action may have different, or largely 
differing, results according to the motives which 
actuated it. Any action taken in a honest en- 
deavor to act in accordance with, and in the in- 
terest of, international solidarity, and with a total 
exclusion of selfish national interest — no matter 
what the action is — ^must by reason of the very 
fact that it was intended to further the cause of 
internationalism, further the struggle of the 
working class, and give an impetus to its upward 
march, with all that that implies for the progress 
and regeneration of the entire human race. 

The considerations which limit the occasions 
when Socialists may give their support to war, 
also prescribe the manner in which that support 



264 Socialism and War 

may be given. Socialists engagaing in war ar*^ 
still Socialists, — that is to say, provided the?> 
enter into the war from Socialist and not frorii 
nationalist considerations. The reasons which ac- 
tuated them in entering the war will therefore 
control their actions and shape their policies dur- 
ing the war. 

To begin with, they will give the war their sup- 
port only as long as that is necessary for the pur- 
pose of achieving the object which made the war 
a proper one from their point of view, and they 
will withdraw their support the moment that ob- 
ject is achieved. And while they are giving the 
war their support they will insist that it be con- 
ducted in a manner that would insure the pur- 
suit of this object and no other. A defensive war 
may easily turn into an aggressive one. They must 
therefore be on their guard that they should not 
by their action inadvertently help in a war of con- 
quest. Before giving their support to the war 
they must therefore exact from their government 
proper guarantees that the war will under no cir- 
cumstances be turned into one of aggression. And 
while the war lasts, they must watch the manner 
in which it is conducted with that end in 
view, and keep their government to a strict ac- 
countability in that respect. In addition to that 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 265 

it is their duty to carry on an educational pro- 
,,aganda which would make the turning of the war 
from one of defence into one of aggression im- 
possible should the government ever be tempted 
to break its promises. 

At the same time they must carry on their reg- 
ular Socialist work, in so far as their energies are 
not taken up with the special propaganda against 
any war of conquest. Or, rather, they should 
make the propaganda against a war of conquest 
part of their regular work in furtherance of the 
class-struggle, making a special effort to show the 
general connection between war and capitalism, 
and teaching the Socialist principles of inter- 
nationalism which would make all wars impos- 
sible. For the class struggle and the propaganda 
of the principles and policies of the class struggle, 
must be kept up. The belief that the class struggle 
interferes with the successful carrying on of war 
is true enough, if war is to be carried on for 
nationalistic purposes, that is for the acquisition 
of power. But it is utterly false in so far as 
purely defensive war is concerned, — using the 
word defensive in the limited and circumscribed 
sense mentioned above. And for that very reason 
the carrying on of the class struggle is the best 
means of preserving the defensive character of the 



266 Socialism and War 

war. Besides, — ^the support of the war being it- 
self only permissible as a means of furthering the 
class struggle, it would, of course, be utterly 
absurd to suspend the class struggle in order the 
better to carry on the war. 

But this is not all. The same principles that de- 
fine and limit for the Socialist the meaning of 
"country" and of "defensive war" also define and 
limit for him the meaning of the word "enemy". 
The Socialist supporting a war must always bear 
in mind that the "enemy" against whom he is ar- 
rayed is not a certain nation or country, but a 
certain government, representing at most the gov- 
erning class of that nation or country. Bear- 
ing this in mind will have most important prac- 
tical results. It will prevent atrocities, for one. 
It will prevent the passions of war venting them- 
selves on the members of the enemy nation as such 
either in speech or in deed. This will make it pos- 
sible for the war to terminate the moment it be- 
comes apparent that the aggressor's lust of con- 
quest is not likely to succeed, thereby preventing 
useless sacrifice of life and property on both 
sides. And, most important of all, it will make 
possible the conclusion of a real peace. Of a peace 
that will not merely be a cessation of armed com- 
bat, but a real cessation of all hostilities, a resump- 



Socialist vs. Bourgeois Theories 267 

tion of neighborly and friendly relations between 
the members of the erstwhile "enemies", and a 
co-operation between them in those peaceful pur- 
suits on which alone can be built the happiness of 
the human race. 



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